The Waiting Game. Wow. Apparently I’m good at it. Or maybe it’s the opposite, maybe if I was good at it, I wouldn’t be so affected by it. I feel like I am always waiting here. In Denmark. In America, waiting is not a worthy pursuit. Patience is a virtue, perhaps. But time is money, peeps. We don’t have time to waste. We are efficient masters of time. What are you waiting for? It won’t just land in your lap, you have to go out there and get it. Whatever your it is. In America. We work long hours to achieve our “it.” Shuttle our kids to and fro their scheduled active lives. Free time? I might have some. Next Tuesday. Let me check. Worth is measured in how our time is filled. What you do with your time. Downtime must be used efficiently as well. Long weekends are good enough. Fill it up. Get out there and get to it. The doing in the time you have allotted for whatever it was you set out to do. Did we get it all done? Who knows. Did my Facebook album and Instagram feed make it look like I did? Super. (They say that a lot here in Denmark.) Success. Right? Maybe.

Back in Copenhagen. In Denmark. Things are slower. It’s acceptable. It’s expected. Nothing wrong with it. Meals are slower (which I like.) Commuting is slower (on bikes and busses.) So here I wait. I wait for the bus. I wait for the train. Not long luckily, most of the time. I used to have to wait for the electric car to charge before we could make the final legs of our long weekend journey home. While the Leaf’s efficiency in lowering carbon emissions is bar none, the electronic charging station infrastructure outside current Danish metroplexes lends tedium to the logistics of using it. We ditched it. Too much waiting. Currently I wait for my ankle to heal. I dislocated it. Badly. And unfortunately the timing for its healing is vague and amorphous. If you can recall, I was released from the hospital with allowances to attend my pre-planned family reunion round the globe in Hawaii. I did. Make it. It wasn’t exactly fun traveling for nearly 36 hours with brand new screws in my ankle and heparin shots to self-inject. But. The arriving and the being and the experiencing and the reuning with family on the Big Island for a long week was worth it. The warm sun on our faces. The iced Kona coffees shared at the sand-floored waterfront shop. The perma-smiles on my childrens’ faces. Was worth it. Even if I couldn’t get in that blue blue water teeming with colorful sleek fish. So worth it. The return trip home equally as tedious. But again. Worth it. That was Thursday last.

God Påske from Denmark! We returned home to a quiet Easter weekend in Copenhagen. Even with 90% of the city shut down – it was beautiful. A long weekend dressed in spring’s finest. Daffodils emerging sunny and yellow. The bluest skies painted with the fluffiest whitest clouds you’ve ever seen. Seriously. You want to learn how to paint clouds? Come to Denmark. Where Copenhagen sits is an island. Clouds blow over the flat landscape in ever mutating puffy shapes. One advantage of our 5th floor flat is that I can bear witness to their passing from my window as I elevate my broken foot. This pro only slightly tops the scales balancing the con of crutching up those flights on one leg. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger may apply here, but allow me some license to gripe. It isn’t easy. And my husband waits. For me. Afraid I might careen back down and break another something I think. Not in my grand plan. But neither was the tossed ankle to be honest.

I’m awaiting a call from the Doctor. Waiting to see when the follow-up surgery required to correct the original corrective surgery will take place. Waiting to see when the light at the end of my tunnel will appear. Right now – it’s pretty dark in there. And there is a traffic jam apparently. Back-up of surgeries more acute than mine at the hospital. Plugging along. But can’t deny that emotionally, it is a wee bit challenging, knowing that you’re rerouting. A big U-turn if you will, back to the beginning of your post-op recovery time. Any progress – less swelling, less pain, more mobility – all null and void. I know. I know. It could be worse. It’s just an ankle. It will heal. But more than my ankle, any progress that I was feeling in expatriation here has slowed to a snail’s pace. Hard to network and explore and share with children when your current reality is moving at a careful, metered crutch-across-cobblestones pace. Eight weeks post-operative progress starts…. NOW. Oh – not now? When, exactly? You don’t know. Oh. Do you know when you’ll know when? No? Ok. Let me know. When. I’m here. Waiting.

I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for waiting with me.

Cheers from Denmark!