Not Waiting Anymore

There’s a moment that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside.

No fight.
No final argument.
No big declaration.

Just the realization that you’ve been standing in the same doorway for years—waiting for someone to meet you where they never have.

This song was written for that moment.

Waiting Is a Skill Many of Us Learned Too Young

Some of us learned early how to wait.

We learned to read the room before we spoke.
To stay quiet to keep the peace.
To interpret absence as “they’re doing their best.”
To call inconsistency love because the alternative hurt too much.

Waiting became a survival skill.

And when the person we were waiting on was a parent—or someone who was supposed to show up like one—that waiting didn’t feel optional. It felt loyal. Necessary. Loving.

Until it didn’t.

The Kind of Grief No One Teaches You How to Name

Grieving a parent who is still alive is one of the loneliest forms of grief.

There’s no funeral.
No clear ending.
No permission to talk about it without being told to “move on.”

You’re not grieving who they are.
You’re grieving who they couldn’t be.

The parent who didn’t protect you.
The parent who avoided accountability.
The parent who stayed comfortable instead of present.
The parent who never met you halfway—no matter how clearly you tried to speak.

That grief doesn’t come all at once.
It shows up as exhaustion.

Burnout Isn’t Just About Work—It’s About Waiting

Burnout doesn’t always come from doing too much.

Sometimes it comes from waiting too long.

Waiting for:

• acknowledgment

• accountability

• consistency

• repair

• change

When you carry hope for someone else’s growth, you end up doing emotional labor they never agreed to do themselves.

That kind of waiting drains you quietly.

And eventually, your body figures it out before your mind does.

Boundaries Aren’t About Punishment—They’re About Refusal

This song isn’t angry.

It’s resolved.

It’s what happens when you stop negotiating with reality.

You don’t stop loving.
You don’t erase the past.
You don’t pretend it didn’t matter.

You simply stop standing in the place where hope keeps reopening the wound.

That’s what a boundary really is:

A refusal to keep bleeding in the same spot.

The Myth That Letting Go Means You Didn’t Care

A lot of people believe that if you stop waiting, it means you didn’t love deeply enough.

The truth is the opposite.

People who stop waiting are usually the ones who waited the longest.

They waited through silence.
Through excuses.
Through patterns that never changed.
Through moments where they were asked to be smaller so someone else didn’t have to feel uncomfortable.

Stopping isn’t cold.
It’s honest.

When You Finally Write the Rule for Yourself

Some rules are never spoken out loud.

They’re written quietly, internally, after years of evidence.

Rules like:

• I won’t explain my pain to people committed to misunderstanding it.

• I won’t ask my children to normalize what hurt me.

• I won’t build my life around someone else’s potential.

• I won’t wait anymore.

This song is one of those rules.

Not posted on a wall.
Not shouted across a room.
Just lived.

If This Song Found You

If Not Waiting resonates with you, it’s probably because you’ve already felt the shift.

You’re not angry.
You’re tired.

And you’re ready to stop performing patience for people who benefit from it.

You’re allowed to grieve what you didn’t get.
You’re allowed to stop hoping for what never came.
You’re allowed to choose presence over possibility.

Some doors don’t need to be slammed.

They just need to be closed.

If you want to sit with this a little longer, here are a few questions you can hold—not answer perfectly:

• Where in my life am I still waiting out of habit?

• What does it cost me to keep standing there?

• What would change if I stopped calling waiting “love”?

• What rule do I need to write for myself now?

There’s no rush.

You don’t have to decide anything today.

But you don’t have to wait forever either.

About the Song

Not Waiting was written as part of Boundaries & Burnout—a body of work for people who are done carrying emotional labor that was never theirs to begin with.

It’s not about blame.
It’s about clarity.

And sometimes, clarity is the most loving thing you can give yourself.