different kinds of sitting

There are different kinds of sitting.

Perhaps my least favorite part of traveling is when we sit on the runway. When all the passengers and crew have boarded and the doors have been shut, and then you sit. 

I traveled last weekend and this one, and last weekend, we ended up sitting on the runway for an hour. They had “overfueled the plane,” which I didn’t realize was a thing (When I told my mom about it later, she asked if I saw some guy out there with a garden hose sucking the fuel out, LOL. I told her it was the best joke she’s ever made). 

I’m currently in the air somewhere over Indiana, and before takeoff, we sat out there for ten minutes before taking off, but the panic began to sink in that we may need to deplane again and get delayed for hours, as I was last weekend. But fortunately, it was just the normal ten minutes needed before liftoff.

But here’s what I realized in those ten minutes: That there are different kinds of sitting. 

When we are sitting on the tarmac not moving, my activity is exactly the same as when we are airborne, throttling through the atmosphere at 4,000 miles per hour (or however fast airliners go, idk). 

Either way, I’m just sitting here. 

But there is a notable difference. In one, it feels like nothing is getting done and we aren’t going anywhere. My heart rate is spiked and my impatience soars the way I wish the plane would. I feel my body willing us to take off, now. And once we do, in the other type of sitting, we are literally hurtling toward our destination: there is tangible progress being made toward our destination. 

It’s productive sitting.
It’s sitting, forward.
It’s sitting that gets you somewhere.

It’s like that meme about waiting faster.

But here’s the little realization I had in today’s iteration of Sitting: The Next Generation. Even when I’m sitting in my seat while the plane is stagnant on the runway, things are happening. The pilots are going through very necessary checklists and processing paperwork which is mandatory to keep all airlines operating and running smoothly and getting planes in the air. 

Even when it feels like we aren’t going anywhere, we kinda are. 

When it feels like nothing is happening (from my vantage point back in 35A), many important things very much are, which are necessary to get me home to Denver. And me being stressed and tight and desperately longing for it all to hurry up, doesn’t do a darn thing to speed things along.

Of course, this is a synecdoche for all of life, and various seasons in which we find ourselves not moving forward. Sure, it feels like nothing is happening and we aren’t getting anywhere, but things most certainly are happening. Like the checklists run by the pilots, we can’t always see the important things going on, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t about to take off and get moving in just a minute or two.  

I’ve had many seasons like this, and I’m sure you have too. It’s helpful to remind ourselves that the ‘sitting on the tarmac’ seasons of life are just as important to getting us where we need to go as the ‘shooting through the sky’ seasons, where movement is evident. 

I can breathe, lower my blood pressure, and sit the same way, letting the plane and crew get me where I need to be. 

e

100 days of blogs, day 15

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