Patience. This word is the bane of my existence. “You must
practice patience.” “You should be more patient.” “Patience is a virtue.” Well,
anyone who knows me knows that I, without a doubt, lack this virtue. I’m sure I
lack others as well, but this is the biggie that affects my life on a daily
basis. I’ve never had patience. I’ve always been about the “now”, about the
instant gratification, about the - let’s just get it done. This theme of
patience has come up a lot recently, so instead of keeping my thoughts about it
inside and bottled up, I figured I would just spill it all right here. For all
of you – all, maybe, 5 of you – to see. The key areas where this is glaringly
pointed for me are – parenting, work and for lack of a better term, my health
journey. Ew, I just said “health journey”. And I just said “ew”.
Parenting is an obvious one, right? I mean kids try your
patience on the daily. And on the weekends, it’s likely hourly. Either you’re
telling them to do something and have to say it at least 10 times before it
gets done or they’ve simply done something so ridiculous that you can’t help
but just be frustrated and ready to lose it. My son gets so easily distracted
that the idea I should have patience around him is absurd. “Male child- go
upstairs, get changed and make your bed.” This seems like a simple set of
tasks, one would think. However, when you wonder where the kid is 15 minutes
later and have no choice but to go check on him – he has one pant leg on and is
literally rolling around on the floor with a stuffed animal. Um, hello! How is
one supposed to be patient around this nonsense? “Female child – please go
clean your room.” Simple. Five minutes later she’s done. Um, really? No way. So
I go upstairs to check – blankets on the floor, piles of crap under her desk,
things spilling out of her closet. Apparently you need to create an actual
diagram of what “clean” looks like because just saying “clean your room” means
different things to different people. Wonderful. My husband and I joke that we
shouldn’t have had kids because we have zero patience. Well, it’s a little late
for that now. Hindsight, as they say.
Work, work, work. As much as things evolve they always stay
the same. This is where I am right now with work. I’m climbing the walls for a
change, and yet here I sit. In the same spot. Is this for lack of trying hard
enough? Maybe. Is it for lack of opportunity? Possibly. But ultimately when you
really feel like you are reaching out for a change and nothing comes, how can
it not be frustrating? And yes, I realize in my logical, adult brain that
things don’t happen instantly and I am supposed to be patient, but as I’ve said
before – I suck at practicing this. So what does one do? I vent. I stew. I vent
some more. (Thank you to my wonderful friends that listen to my venting and
stewing.) Naturally. This is me. I’m not perfect, I never purported to be
perfect. I’m human. And this human lacks patience. Patience can bite my ass.
My health journey. Again, ew. But whatever you want to call
it – fitness, nutrition, wellness, an overall healthy lifestyle. All of these
things I have struggled with forever. But for the last few months, in this
space, I have been doing the most “patience practicing” I’ve ever done in my
life. I’m working with a nutrition coach who tells me on a weekly basis that
this process takes patience. And I really do love working with her so I kindly
remind her that this is extremely difficult for me to do, and because she’s an
empath, she hasn’t fired me as a client – yet. I realized that the
rollercoaster I have been on for my whole life has ultimately really damaged my
metabolism. Oh, so you mean eating 1,200 – 1,300 calories during the week and
then adding another thousand calories on the weekend WON’T help me reach my
goals? Shut up. More on that another time. Ultimately, she is helping me learn
to feed myself properly and is teaching me strategies and for once I am
focusing on the steps to get to my goal as opposed to just the goal itself.
This has been going on for almost three months, with basically no “visual”
physical change. Never have I been so focused on something that has yielded
such little outward, noticeable change. And it kind of feels good. It’s also really hard for me. And sometimes I
don’t want to keep it up, I want the change now, one way or another. Sometimes
I can’t be patient, sometimes I take two steps back. But I am trying to learn
to go easy on myself. To be, dare I say, patient with myself.
And as an aside, I find it funny that people make
assumptions that one has patience. For instance, when you’re on a plane and the
pilot says you’re number 20 for take-off or that the flight time has been
delayed. They always end this delivery of oh so fun news with – “Thank you for
your patience.” I find it odd that this assumption is made. I’m actually a
captive on this plane. I do not have patience, I simply do not have a choice. I
can sit and calmly wait or I can get arrested. But thank you for assuming I’m a
patient person.
What does this all mean? I don’t know. It means I hate the
word patience! It also means I realize I need to have at least some of it if I
want to reduce stress levels and live a bit more of a relaxed life. I try to
better myself where I can. The patience I have been using in my path to
wellness sometimes bleeds into other parts of my life, but it is really
difficult. And it’s not all that fun at times. I’m 43 years old and I’m still
learning things about myself so I guess that’s a good thing. There is always
room for growth right? I hope no one expects a miracle though. I hear those
take patience as well.
What is YOUR patience level like??
Thanks for reading!
Peace. Love. And sanity.
