Some seasons are waiting rooms. You can’t speed up the doctor, but you can choose what you read while you wait.

Some stretches cannot be hurried, and pretending otherwise adds a second problem on top of the first. Waiting is genuinely hard because effort, which usually helps, does nothing here. What stays available is smaller but real: what you pay attention to, who you spend the time with, how you treat yourself while nothing moves. The pace is not yours, though the hours still are.

Decide what this waiting period is for, even if the answer is only rest. Give it to one thing and leave the remainder unstructured. Filling it with worry is the single option that costs something and returns nothing.