Three Days Waiting for Interview Results, Noting Every Time I Picked Up My Phone

Wednesday. The interview ended yesterday afternoon, and the woman from HR said an email would come within three working days. I am twenty-seven, I have a decent job, and I am waiting on another one I want more. I am writing these three days down, not to say I waited calmly. Only to see when my hand reached for the phone on its own.

Wednesday, 7:10. My hand fumbled for the phone before my eyes were fully open. No new email. I made a tally mark in the little notebook by the bed: the first time. A motorbike coughed to life at the mouth of the alley, and the smell of the neighbours' drip coffee drifted up to my bedroom window. I stood brushing my teeth while my head had already drafted an answer for if they offered me the job, and a different one for if they turned me down.

9:30. On the bus, by the window, I opened my inbox three times between two stops. Nothing new, yet I kept pulling down to refresh. I stopped, not through willpower, but because the battery was nearly flat. Honestly, if it had been full I would probably have opened it again.

12:20. The broken-rice place near the office. I turned the phone face down on the table, picked up a piece of pork chop, and halfway through the plate realised I was chewing without tasting a thing. I put my chopsticks down and spooned some garlic-and-chilli fish sauce over the rice. Sour, then sweet, then heat spread across my tongue. Just one spoonful, but enough to know I was sitting in a restaurant, not in an inbox.

15:40. The colleague beside me tilted his chair over: "Any news?" I said, "Not yet." He asked, "Is not yet good or bad?" I answered on reflex: "Not yet is not yet." Only after saying it did I notice that it rang truer than every theory I had been turning over since morning. Not yet is not yet. It is not a sign of anything. A short pause like that, much like three seconds of mindfulness in a busy day, turned out to be enough for me to hear it.

23:10. I lay down and switched off the lamp. I opened the phone "one last time" to check for email. Then a second last time. Then a third. I was not angry with myself, only a little amused, and I set the phone on the bedside cabinet, face down. It took a while to fall asleep.

Thursday, 6:50. This morning I tried something different: I carried the phone to the dining table and left it an arm's length from my chair, instead of beside my pillow. Nothing grand about mindfulness, only that every reach now meant standing up. I made fewer tally marks than yesterday, but do not trust it yet, it has been one morning.

18:30. Mum called from the countryside. "Any news, dear?" I said no. She said, "Then let it come. I made bitter melon soup, eat it while it is hot." I laughed. Mum promised me nothing about the result, and it felt gentler than any comfort that begins with "surely".

Friday, 15:00. The three-day mark was close. I switched off email notifications during work and checked only at three and five. At three I checked. Nothing. My throat tightened a notch, my shoulders crept up. I rested both hands on my thighs and looked out of the window: afternoon sun on the old tin roof, a sparrow landing and flying off. The tightness stayed a while, then loosened.

20:40. The email has not come. I do not know which news it will be, and I may not find out until Monday morning. Tonight I washed two glasses, the way you wash dishes without thinking of anything else, warm water running between my fingers, the soap smelling of lemon. The phone is in the living room, face down.

If waiting for a result leaves your sleep and meals upended for days on end, or you think about it so much you cannot do anything else, that is something to bring to someone with professional training. This diary is only about one week of waiting for an email, and I do not know whether it suits everyone.

Tomorrow I will probably add a few more tally marks to the notebook.