The Waiting Room

I swear sometimes that purgatory is what happens while you’re sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting for the nurse to call your name.

After enough appointments, every waiting room starts to feel the same. You sit there holding on to a little hope that maybe this will be the visit. Maybe this doctor will connect the dots. Maybe they’ll finally figure out what’s wrong and tell you how to fix it.

But another part of you wonders if this is simply where you’ll stay.

One specialist sends you to another. Another orders more tests. Then comes another referral, another waiting room, another clipboard, another explanation of your symptoms. You start to feel less like a person searching for answers and more like a file being passed from office to office.

The waiting itself becomes its own kind of suffering. It’s agonizing because you’re caught between hope and resignation. Hope that this appointment will finally change everything. Fear that nothing will change at all.

I’ve been in purgatory since my late teens. Far too early to be traveling the endless doctor and waiting room circuit.

In the waiting room, you’re stripped of most of your power. Your control. Your dignity. Your status. None of those things matter anymore. Whether you’re a CEO or unemployed, rich or barely getting by, everyone waits the same.

Most of the time you don’t see anyone there you recognize. But you do recognize them.

You recognize the people battling chronic illness, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and mental health issues. All these brave but lost souls waiting their turn.

For some, this may be the only time they leave their house all week. Some are more anxious than you are. Some wish they weren’t there at all. Most are hanging onto some small level of hope that maybe this appointment will be different.

I’d be sitting in the waiting room and notice someone who might have it even worse than me. I’d find myself getting sad for them because sometimes you could almost see the hope draining from their soul. A friend by their side. A walker helping them along. Quietly waiting, just like the rest of us.

It reminded me that every person in that room was carrying a story I knew nothing about. Every ache. Every diagnosis. Every disappointment. Every ounce of hope they were still trying to hold onto.

After a while, I realized it wasn’t just doctor’s offices where I was waiting.

I was waiting for test results.

Waiting for the next specialist.

Waiting for a medication to work.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting for someone to finally have an answer.

Waiting to feel like myself again.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped noticing how much of my life had become waiting.

In the waiting room, titles don’t matter much. Nobody knows who’s a teacher, who’s retired, who’s wealthy, or who’s struggling. Pain has a way of leveling the room. For a little while, everyone is simply waiting to hear their name.

We’re all just people hoping that when the door opens, the person calling our name might also be calling us one step closer to an answer.

I remember so many times sitting in a doctor’s office, so depressed, hoping they could fix me. I’d pour all my hope into that one appointment. I’d put all my bets on that one outcome.

Most of the time, I’d leave disappointed.

That’s when I’d find myself looking down that dark, almost irresistible path. The one that whispers there has to be an easier way to end the waiting. To end the uncertainty. To end the suffering.

The dark path is quicker, easier, and sometimes incredibly seductive.

But every time, I’d turn away.

I’d make the next appointment. See the next specialist. Sit in the next waiting room.

I think that’s part of the reason I’ve always loved Star Trek. They have a hypospray for almost everything. A few seconds, and you’re healed. Depression isn’t stealing years from your life. Chronic pain isn’t your constant companion. Illness isn’t something that follows you from one specialist to the next.

Maybe that’s why that future has always felt so comforting to me. Not because of the starships or the technology, but because it’s a future where people don’t have to spend so much of their lives waiting to feel whole again.

Finally, my name gets called, and my heart starts racing.

What will it be this time?

Answers?

More questions?

Another dead end?

I don’t know.

I just know there are always two paths waiting for me. One is dark, whispering that I’ve been waiting long enough. The other is quieter, asking me to hold on just a little longer. To trust that maybe this specialist will finally connect the dots in this complicated stew of illnesses I’ve been carrying for so long.

So I take a breath, stand up, and follow the nurse.

Maybe purgatory isn’t a place we go after we die.

Maybe it’s any place where life feels paused. Where you’re no longer where you were, but you can’t quite get to where you hope to be.

Or maybe it’s every waiting room where people sit in that space between suffering and healing, clinging to hope while wondering if this appointment will finally change their lives.

And yet, every waiting room eventually has a nurse who opens the door and calls a name.

Maybe that’s why we keep showing up.

Not because we’re certain this time will be different.

But because somewhere beneath the exhaustion and disappointment...

Hope is still there.

Quietly waiting.

Just like we are.