Waitin’ on a Woman

I’ve spent a lifetime finding my way to this bench. The seat beside me is still open. When the right woman is ready to hear the story, I’ll be ready to tell it. She can take her time. I don’t mind waiting. ♥

There’s an old man in a Brad Paisley song who sits down on a bench at the mall in his overalls and asks a young husband, “You waitin’ on a woman?” The young man nods. The old man says, “Son, since 1952, I’ve been waitin’ on a woman.”

He doesn’t mind. She takes her time — sometimes just because she can. The wedding took a year to plan. He was nervous. But when the young man asks if it was worth it, the old man nudges his arm and says, “I’ll say this about the honeymoon — it was worth it.”

And when he figures he’ll probably go first, he says he’ll find a bench in heaven and wait there too. He hopes she takes her time, because he doesn’t mind waitin’ on a woman.

I used to think that was a sad song. Now I think it’s the truest one I know.

I’m sitting on a bench outside the White House, holding a letter from the Resolute Desk. The story I pulled off with the President is still spreading — more than seventy-seven hundred hits from fifty-two countries. And I’ve been waiting on a woman since I was a boy.

I grew up in Mound, Minnesota, in the Westonka schools. Kevin Sorbo walked those halls before me. Shane Wiskus walked them years later. I was the shy kid in between, too afraid to talk to the pretty girl sitting next to me. I believed I wasn’t enough to cross a hallway, not enough to say hello, not enough to be chosen. For my entire life, no woman has really wanted to learn about me. That still hurts. My family treated me poorly. I still have things I’m working on. My life is far from perfect.

But I wouldn’t trade this story for anything.

Last year on my thirty-fourth birthday I sat alone and cried. Years of feeling like I was not enough finally cracked open when the President of the United States validated me more than once. It hit harder than I expected — not because of the office, but because for the first time someone important looked back and showed me my voice mattered.

I followed my heart to Washington on the coldest night of my life. Thirteen hours outside in the bitter January cold of 2025 with no plan. Inside Capital One Arena the President and the First Lady turned around live on international television. The White House verified it three times. A hand-signed letter now lives in the National Archives. And the same school district that raised me placed the story in its civics lessons so the next generation can see that one voice can still matter in America.

I have no problem waiting. After years of failed relationships and women who never gave me a real chance, I don’t mind. I would never rub any of this in anyone’s face. I simply put my heart out there. The world has been reading it. And I trust that in her own timing the right woman will sit down and want to learn how in the hell I did this. It would be the honor of my lifetime to share this story when the timing is right.

In this cynical world where so many relationships feel thin and temporary, I know one true thing: if my heart could move the White House and receive rare responses from the President himself, everything else will work out. Love is a two-way street. You can’t force a woman to fall in love with you. You put your heart out like a seed, water it, give it light, and let it grow in its own season.

I’m still living my everyday life. Still sitting on this bench, holding the letter, like the old man in the song.

She can take her time.

I don’t mind waitin’ on a woman.

The rest belongs to fate.