Patience

Tom Petty truly said it best when he wrote the lyric “The Waiting Is the Hardest Part.”

Waiting in line, waiting at the doctors office, waiting for results to come back from the doctors office. Waiting for your dog to do “their business” when it’s raining outside. Ever use a diffuser to blow dry your hair? If you have curly hair like I do, you know how incredibly challenging waiting for your curls to dry with this thing can be!!!

There’s many different levels of waiting we go through as human beings though, and it starts immediately. Parents sit, with stick in hand, as the seconds tick by waiting the results. Then wait nine months before they meet their newborn. It’s the first lesson as humans we have to learn or try to learn….

To be patient.

On many different levels, in many different stages of life, under many different circumstances throughout our life, we find ourselves waiting and trying to be patient. If you’re waiting for someone to come out of surgery, you can feel the angst begin to build up with that kind of waiting. But, when they’re in recovery and you’re waiting for their eyes to open, it’s almost a patient kind of waiting. It’s a lot different then when you’re on hold and “call volumes may be higher” at the time you have called, or if you’re next in line and someone needs a price check. Sometimes we’re waiting for progress. We’ve put the time in and are waiting for that muscle to grow or weight to come off. Or what about the times it’s a feeling? Sometimes we’re waiting for a feeling to go away and painfully, sadly, sometimes they don’t. It heals a little but, you may find yourself waiting on a feeling.

As kids, I think we feel this pull inside of us. “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to…” And it continues from there. We wait to graduate, for the job offer, the raise, the home, maybe even a mate. We wait as we continue to live. We somehow manage to walk around with this almost unconscious feeling inside and yet, it’s so familiar we become comfortable with it. Maybe we even start to accept that we may have this feeling inside our whole life, as we live.

It’s odd. Isn’t it? Living, yet all the while kind of feeling this lingering, waiting feeling, deep, deep inside.

It’s in the wait though. It’s in the wait, where I think we are suppose to learn and grow the most within ourselves. It’s in the wait, that we learn. Or at the very least, gives us the opportunity to learn. A friend of mine once said to me “Savor the wait” and I didn’t understand at the time, but it kept echoing inside. “Savor the wait? What does that even mean?” But, I love this friend and trust her with my life, so I pondered it and pondered it and maybe what I’ve come up with is, it’s in the waiting where we learn how to self soothe, how to stay present, how to accept, how to persist, to overcome, to keep striving, and most importantly to be content.

How to be content in the waiting.

“Be still and know.” Most of us have heard this. Doesn’t the word “still” refer to wait?!

Waiting and waiting well?! And, with trust?!

As we reach the end of 2020 I feel like it’s been a year, of waiting.

More importantly, to be waiting patiently.

Did that sting a little when you read it? It did me when I wrote it. “Have I waited patiently?” I wondered? I want to believe I’ve been patient. Or tried to be. Yet, some days, I can barely wait for the light to turn green. I notice I tend to be much more patient with other people then I am with myself though. I’ve tried to learn how to be patient with myself. Patient trying to see what I feel I can or can’t handle on any given day. I have tried to give grace to myself this year, and by learning how to do that, its automatically spilled over to other people. I’m trying to be more grace-filled, patient and less expectant of other people. Just trying to really meet them, right where they are, and not expecting anything more from them. Not their behavior, their demeanor, their words. Some days though, the part of me that’s still growing and is trying to harness this riddle of patience, has low tolerance for people and their sentences and I sit and wonder “Do they hear themselves? This can’t be how they really feel.” I mean come on, you’ve heard me say it over and over “I’m human, some days I’m better at it then others.”

Have you been patient this year? Patient with guidelines? Restrictions? With the process of trying to maneuver through something we’ve never lived through in our lifetime before? Have you been patient as you listened and read and overwhelmed yourself with constant incoming information? Have you been patient with others and the information they’ve read and overwhelmed themselves with? Family members? Friends? Colleagues? The guy in front of you telling all his opinions (and loudly) on life to the cashier making $10/hour at Food Lion and he’s not wearing a mask? Shouldn’t he be connected with my therapist who is a trained professional about his issues? Not the girl trying to get out of high school this year and is wondering what college may be like for her next year?

Some days, some days I’ve been more then others.

I’m quick to apologize on those days though, if I’ve been short or showing all the unsavory qualities I have. I’ve also been quick to say “help me understand ” but inside, I’ve struggled being patient listening to the responses because I do really want to understand, but man, some days I just don’t.

Have you been patient with yourself and the changes you’ve been going through? Or are you still demanding of yourself going at the same pace you’ve kept and want to keep, because no one is telling you what you can or can’t do, not even yourself? Have you lost all ability to self discipline? To be patient? To wait?

I want to be optimistic and think we are all work in progress, like clay being molded each and everyday. Life is molding us with these opportunities to grow. Are you? Growing? Or are you stagnant and stuck and wanting what you want when you want it because you’re “tired” of being told what to do (even if it may be beneficial to the whole.) Are you tired of speed limits? Shirts and shoes in every establishment you walk into!? The “click it or ticket?” Do you get angry at those or do you accept it for the good of the whole?

My hope is that patience has won this year for you. (You’re human, if it hasn’t this isn’t the time to beat yourself up, this is the time to give yourself grace and you’ll be better tomorrow.) That you dug deep and reminded yourself everyday and showed yourself you have more of them than you ever would have believed.

My personal hope for all of us is to look at patience the same as Roy T. Bennet this up coming year….

“Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and to have faith to believe that it will all work out while you’re waiting.”

I process life through writing.

I process the things around me by writing to see how I really feel about it. It doesn’t mean I completely understand or figure it out by the time I’m done, but it helps me process. Maybe it helps you too, or if not, if it makes you clamp down harder on your beliefs and stance, it’s ok, I’ll meet you where you are at, I’m learning how to be patient.

Side Note: To be clear, I do not own a dog. Nor do I know exactly how it would be to have to take them out when it’s raining, but I imagine you have to have a lot of patience.

Special Thank You: To my friends and amazing clients who have heard me say the sentence to them “Help me understand.” You have been so PATIENT with me as I questioned you and tried to follow your perspective and I’ve fallen short so many times. I try to see your perspective, I’d like bridge the gap and if I’ve asked you these questions and it has been awkward for a moment, thank you for sitting in it with me, you’re helping me grow and learn patience. Thank you to Heather Kissick for the art work and quotes that just matched my vibration this week so much I had to share. Karen Jacobson for reminding me of everyday standards in society, and Alicia Dalpe for helping me understand “savoring” life. All of it, even the wait.