A difficult answer may simplify choices that waiting kept painfully open.

Not knowing keeps every version alive at once, and holding them all takes more from you than the answer usually does. When it finally comes, even an unwelcome one, several impossible questions close, and the ground stops moving underneath the planning. That is not a consolation for the loss, only a description of what changes.

If you are waiting on something, notice how much of the strain is the uncertainty itself. When the answer arrives, allow yourself a while to feel it, and then let it narrow the next decision rather than reopening all of them.