I once read a Roland Barthes quote that goes:

Am I in love? --yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.

And I've never fully stopped thinking about it, because it resonates deeply. Not only in love, but that too. I am the one who waits. I always have been. In life, in love, in everything between. This is also why I used to relate to Aaron Burr in the Hamilton song Wait For It when he sang, "I'm not standing still, I am lying in wait." I comfort myself with the knowledge that eventually, when the time is right, I'll get to bloom, and until then, I'll content myself with planning and preparing.