Winter is here, and I'm still waiting there

There's nothing on TV tonight, DH is deep into solving an equation of some sort (the long sort, I guess), and I have nothing cycle-related to do until Wednesday. So I poked around the CD library. In 1995 I listened to Annie Lennox's Medusa album a lot, and I repeated this cut — a cover of Bob Marley's "Waiting in Vain" — every time. DH and I lived in different cities then while I pursued burning career interests and he finished his doctorate. We were married in October that year after 5 years together — 3 of which had seen us doing the long-distance thing (we actually did THAT for another year after the wedding, but that is another story).

We'd hatched our brilliant long-distance-for-happiness scheme thinking DH had just 1 year, tops, before finishing up. But fate and a broken million-dollar laser crucial to DH's research had a different adventure in mind for us.

I got pretty fed up with the wait. We both did, and many times we came close to scrapping you-name-it: his PhD (it's not worth it, he'd say), my job (I'll move in with you and work retail, I'd say), our wedding plans (let's just drop out and elope, we'd say), the whole shebang of a possible life together (nobody ever actually said that one).

Back to the song. I love the Marley original. But this cover gives the work an emotional spin that I think is just devastating . . . yet gorgeous and painfully hopeful. It hit home for me as I struggled hard with waiting, season after season after season, for us to get our life together on "the" track. Of course we did much more than just wait. We looked for solutions. Worked on 'em all the time and chipped away, making progress we couldn't see. But. It. Took. So. Long. Much like our struggle to become parents. That sitch runs so parallel to this one that I may have to get out some old calendars, compare peaks and valleys, and creep myself out.

That the song hits me where I'm living now/again, took me by surprise. Here's where it got to me tonight:

'Cause summer is here
And I'm still waiting there
Winter is here
I'm still waiting there

Like I said—
It's been three years since I'm knocking on your door
And I still can knock some more
Ooh, boy, ooh, boy, is it crazy? Look, I wanna know now
For I to knock some more

You see—
In life I know
That there is lots of grief
But your love is my relief
Tears in my eyes burn
Tears in my eyes burn
While I'm waitin'
While I'm waitin' for my turn . . .

That's all for now. I'm off to hug my husband and enjoy the last hour of the type of evening we used to think we'd never get to have together.