there there

Whenever I’m in the doctor’s waiting room, the most restless person there will be next to me. Whether this person arrived after me, or I chose to sit at their side.

The more I get still, calm, patiently waiting, reading (if I didn’t forget to take a book with me), the more this person will be agitated. She will go through her purse. He will fiddle with his phone. They will painfully sigh each time a door opens for someone else than them, rummage through their bag for this huge agenda and its pages covered with big letters hastily written for so many important appointments.
One (apparently also including every-one-else) has to be sure they’re at the right place, at the right time, on the right purpose.

Then again, maybe I am not really patient, because not really waiting. Some appointments are indeed worth being nervous. But, most of the time, for me, they only mean getting a prescription renewed. One minute, looking at those old posters on the wall in front of me. The next, reading a sentence for the second time because this little boy three seats away, after inspecting these images and their lecture on a healthier you, made a comment on how damaged they are and, turning to his mother earnestly added: “I didn’t do it”.
Not much of a waiting room for me. It’s more about being here now than about getting “in there” soon.