THE THING ABOUT PATIENCE

You know that game where you have to describe yourself in three words? I hate that game. I can never think of three words. My lack of desire to self-analyse means I'm not really sure I want to know how I perceive myself. However there is one word that always springs to mind. And that word is impatient. I have a really low concentration span and get bored easily. I always have to have a magazine, my phone or earphones to hand. I can't even wait for a bus without some form of distraction to pass the time. I lose count of the amount of times a day I use the phrase 'hurry up Ava', I regularly switch movies off a third of the way through and if I know something is coming then I pretty much want it yesterday.

I've always been really quick at everything I do. If we're both reading the same paragraph then I will have finished it before you are halfway through and will be nervously twitching in anticipation of you turning the page. I've been the first person to finish practically every single exam I ever sat. I drive too fast (although I'm better since I had Ava) and I can touch type ridiculously quick. The only thing I've never been super speedy at is running 9 miles. But that's not through lack of trying. I think the reason for this is my impatience. I hate waste of any sort. Whether it's food, money or time.

Over the past couple of years (since I got all inner zen on you lot), I've been trying to be better. I bite my lip and smile sweetly when Ava takes 6 hours to pick a sweetie in the garage. I try and use the inordinate amount of time it takes my dentist to see me to think about ways I wasn't great that week. To think of ways I can improve. Like when I sneered hello instead of smiled at the teacher at Ava's nursery that I really can't tolerate. Or when I engaged in mindless gossip in the office instead of doing the right thing and putting my head down.  I know it sounds like hippy, over the top, wanky bullshit. But I don't think there's any harm in constantly striving to be a nicer person. Of constantly striving to be better than you were yesterday. 

So in teaching myself be more patient I've been trying to apply this to the bigger things in life. To the long game.I will occasionally get disheartened that I'm not exactly where I want to be. I don't have the  magazine column, second baby or the garden yet. But instead of worrying about the future I calmly accept that it's going to happen. Eventually. That I just have to be patient. If you read regularly you will all be aware of my beliefs and crazy ramblings on cosmic ordering but there's something else I want badly right now. Something I can't get out of my head and I don't know why. But like a watched kettle never boils, it seems a constantly checked email never pings. Yet I can't escape this feeling in the pit of my stomach. This giddy, gnawing, truthful feeling that it's going to happen. That I just have to be patient. And it's this feeling, something I have felt a lot over the past year or two, that is teaching me about patience.

It's teaching me the thing about patience.

And how I'm finally learning to find some.