Timing ISN'T Everything

In the film Country Strong, Garrett Hedlund croons to Leighton Meester and Gwyneth Paltrow (in separate scenes. It's complicated) that "timing is everything."

Side note: Whatever happened to Garrett Hedlund?

I saw this movie on a very emotional day in high school and that message has stuck with me. In fact, the entire soundtrack of Country Strong has stuck with me, including the fact that Tim Mcgraw is in a 2 hour movie about country music and he doesn't get to sing until the credits roll.

This is why Mashiach isn't here yet.

I think in some ways we all believe that timing is everything. We make it through the intersection just before the light turns red and think to ourselves "today is going to be a good day." The romance industry has conditioned us to believe that somehow you're going to be at the right airport at the right time to meet the one.

Personally, I'd prefer not to meet my intended on a travel day, because on travel days I look like this:

And that's anywhere in the airport or on the plane, I am just full out asleep. I've hit 3 REM cycles before the plane takes off.

But I have had my own experiences believing that this could be the one because the timing felt so country-song perfect.

A couple of years ago I had one of those Yom Kippurs where I believed for a second that I am not doomed to hell after all. There was a perfect mixture of pre-fast hydration and eating, lack of headache, amount of time it took the chazzan to get through Mussaf, number of bathroom breaks I took, what the rabbi said or didn't say in his speech, weather outside, number of ambulances that passed the shul during Neilah with the siren on, people sitting next to me and how much they decided to sing, and all the other factors that came together to give me a very connected and spiritual Yom Kippur. I poured my heart out to my creator begging for my salvation from my life of stalking boys on Facebook.

When I got home I went into a quick food coma, as one does. When I awoke, I turned on my phone and saw I had received an email from a shadchan that contained a resume about 20 minutes after Neilah was over.

You guys.

Hashem TOTALLY HEARD ME!

Hashem put this idea in the Shadchan's head DURING my gorgeous Neilah and it all finally worked out! The stars were aligning, the lights were flashing-this was IT.

Until I opened the email.

He was 40, divorced and in Kollel.

As a 23 year old who had never been married and was looking for career guys only that felt just a tad....off.

There have been other times the timing has felt just right. The boy who happened to be in my out-of-town community the same week I was. The one whose younger brother had a baby the same week my younger sister had her baby and took me out the day before the Bris. The time a coworker, on my very first day at my new job said "I know your husband." Spoiler alert: he was not my husband.

Garrett may be adorable and may have the voice of an angel from Tennessee. But Garrett should know that unless you're an Olympian, timing isn't everything. There's only one force I can actually count on and He's got the timing down perfectly.

If Tim McGraw can wait for the credits to finally get to show the movie audience why he has 3 Grammy wins and 20 nominations, I too can wait for Garrett, Gwyneth, and Leighton to get their drama over with before it's my turn to shine.