Pauline Reneaux

As We Wait

Monday, September 3, 2018

Hi, my name is Pauline Reneaux and I'm excited to be taking my work out into the world on the new digital magazine 318 Central. In this month's piece I reference the timeless saying,

"Good things come to those who wait." 

     After turning in my article I kept mulling this phrase over in my mind, so I decided now was the perfect time to launch my new website and lean into the words that I have been jotting down in notebooks for years.

     Often times writers of both books and film will focus on the good thing or bad things that happen in the characters' lives, but they never tell us how the characters got from point A to point B.  They never tell us about their "mean time," about their wait.  It's true that technology has allowed our wait time to diminish in some respects, but for the big things, the life changing things, a time of waiting is usually required. Or rather what time has taught me is that when we do have to wait for something or work for something we appreciate it more.


     But how do we do that? How do we wait when the world around us and people in general ask, "What are you waiting for?" And we often have well meaning friends and family tell us how quickly time passes, so don't wait too long to go for our dreams, move those mountains, find our feng shui, publish those books. The wait is a careful balancing act that really we have to place in God's hands, for if we try to get ahead of His plans the consequences can be catastrophic. I think it also depends on if we are a "glass is half full" or a "glass is half empty" type of person, though some would also say it all depends upon what exactly is in the glass.


     I'm a "glass is half full," type of woman and I guess as a creative and a writer I have learned to embrace the wait. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean the wait is easy for me, but it is in the wait that we grow...it is in the wait that we learn...it is in the wait that we are able to truly savor all that life has given us. I have spent years working on my books and the characters that inhabit the covers of them, but it has been through the wait that they have developed and the plots have developed and the twists and turns have developed. So to me my writing has been no different than someone creating fine wine. Just like wine has to age until it reaches it's full potential, the wait allows us the time to really give our projects the best we have to offer.


     So as I go through this season of waiting, I don't sit by idly hoping that what I want is going to appear like a package tossed off of Santa's sled. As I wait I read great books, like Cheryl Strayed's Brave Enough and Rachel Hollis', Girl, Wash Your Face, studying their words, and letting their quotes sink into my heart and soul. I have surrounded myself with incredibly supportive, but tell me like it is "ride or die" type of friends. As I wait, I study ways to improve my writing, and accept constructive criticism from those who are mentoring me as I meander along on my journey. I watch powerful films like they are visual textbooks. As I wait, I work on me. I work on me so that I may go out into the world and help make it a better place. As I wait, I write down all of the steps in the process, so that my journey can one day be someone else's road map to help them get from their own point A to point B. To help them see what one sassy Southern lady did to make it through her season of waiting, so that one day, not only will they see that "Good things come to those who wait," but that when the wait is over, the end result was even more incredible than this writer, with the very vivid imagination, could have ever imagined.

Blessings!
Pauline

2 comments:

  1. Inspiring! I need to remember this when I want everything now!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beth, thank you. I think it is something we all have to continue to remind ourselves.

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