Wait for It

So, I think I've mentioned in other posts (like this one *cough*) that I'm not normally one for bandwagons.  Thankfully, though, I'd only heard a few things about Hamilton and was therefore able to embrace it and enjoy it.  

For those that have not had the opportunity to listen to it yet, it is a lot of fun and is well put together, a warts and all story.  The construction, too, is slick, with reoccurring motifs in the music and lyrics that are used in different ways at different points in the stories.  One of my favorite elements, though, is how Aaron Burr is a foil for Hamilton the whole way through.  Alexander Hamilton is always goes through life in a rush, always taking risks, pushing forward, and writing excessively, "like he's running out of time."  Aaron, however, takes a very different perspective in my favorite song of the whole musical:  check it out.  

Aaron Burr, in the musical at least, always weighs his options.  He doesn't choose a side so that he can choose when the time is right, waiting for the right opportunity.  Alexander Hamilton, by contrast, seems to keep winning despite going against Aaron's philosophy, which Aaron finds both perplexing and amazing.  Immediately before this song, Alexander recommends to Aaron to go after the woman he's in love with, even though she is married to a British officer.  He starts the song musing over this situation.  

"Love doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints...
And if there's a reason I'm by her side
When so many have tried,
I'm willing to wait for it
I'm willing to wait for it"

Aaron is recognizing that he doesn't fully understand why his lover chose him over anyone else that she could have had.  He's willing to wait and find out what that reason is, mostly I believe out of gratitude, not wanting to question his own good fortune.  Then, he starts reflecting on his parents.  

"Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints...
And if there's a reason I'm still alive
When everyone who loves me has died
I'm willing to wait for it
I'm willing to wait for it"

Aaron's not sure why his parents were taken from him or why he is still alive, but he's willing to wait to see what the reason is for this, too.  

However, Aaron seems to be tired of trying to justify this waiting, declaring that he's "not standing still, [he's] lying in wait."  His thoughts this shift to his rival, noticing that although Alexander Hamilton acts counter-intuitively to everything else he's believed, he somehow still seems to come out on top.  This, too, confuses Aaron, and he's willing to wait and see what the reason for that is, too.  

"Life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
We keep living anyway
We rise and we fall and we make our mistakes
And if there's a reason I'm still alive
When so many have died
Then I'm willing to wait for it"

Through the course of the musical, we can see both Hamilton and Burr cross paths again and again, each time subtlely changing the other, until Aaron goes out on a limb for something he wants and Alexander specifically refrains from taking sides until he has to.  

I have had a conversation with many people recently, it seems, particularly over the last couple of years, where we had a discussion about waiting.  It seems that Andy and I know a lot of people right now that are in transition states.  Some of that is a product of decisions that were made, but in more cases, this is now a part of millennial life--when you've grown up hearing that you must go to college in order to get a good job, even implying that you will surely then get a good job upon finishing college, saddled with on average 25K worth of debt, told that you should find a unique vocation and you're "too good" for flipping burgers, well, a lot of us would rather have started out with nothing instead of all that baggage.  

We're not lazy--the world is just different.  We're not failures for not doing everything exactly as our parents did.  We're not failures for not being exactly where someone else things we should be in life.  In fact, we're not even failures for not being where WE want to be in life.  

That comes back to the waiting thing.  Andy and I have agreed that we are homesick for the future, that there are definitely places that we want to be in life that aren't exactly where we are now.  But we're still making all of the right steps toward that future.  Waiting is not an idle thing--we're preparing  in every way we can now.  It doesn't make us any less frustrated, but its reassuring all the same.  For the things we really want, we're willing to wait. 

And in the meanwhile, there are many good things about where we're at now, surrounding ourselves with good people, adventures, and attempting to be fiscally responsible.  Everything else will hopefully make sense in time.