Patience

Anyone who knows me well has a thorough grasp on my inability to retain patience. Those who I love-and luckily continue to love me back- have seen me time and time again wallowing in my own devastation as a result of impatience. In all transparent honesty, my biggest downfall is impatience.

I am unwilling to wait for traffic, or for a college to call me back, or for a friend a few minutes late to coffee. I am burdened daily by distant response times and tedious activities. Most days, my impatience is something I accept as a part of me and rejoice in. I am grateful for my impatience because it gives me something to whine about. Something to hide behind, and blame and use against me. Patience is my biggest struggle.

So as a result I am placed in situations through which I am forced to be patient every day. Patient with myself. Patient with others. Patient with the cars in front of me in rush hour traffic. Patient with college admissions counselors. But I, in all of my selfishness, hate everything about it. I do not want to grow and become a bigger person. I do not want to take the time to create a great piece of art, or write a novel. I do not want to slow my life down from its 150 miles per hour and walk. I want to run to the next stop and complete the task and move on.

Last week, in the beautiful weather my body began urging for physical activity. It wanted to walk, it said. It wanted to go to the lake and hike around a bit. It wanted to spend time in great conversation and deep thought and long coffee dates. Yet my head denied it. My head said that there were far too many things for me to do to worry about silly self-reflective activities. My head refused to give my heart the patience it craved to enjoy last week's beautiful weather.

And now it is cold again. Ugly, and miserable and rainy. I was bitter at the cold, but mostly I am bitter with myself for not enjoying the beauty of the weather while it was here.

As much as I truly hate being taught patience and learning the hard way, I need it. I just wish I could be taught faster.