Patience is a virture…and other bedtime stories.

I’ve never been what someone would call a patient person. I’m the one that tailgates so close to the car in front of me, that I might as well be driving in their back trunk. I’m the one that shakes the gifts under the tree at Christmas and lifts the wrapping up to see if I can get a glimpse of what prize – or regift! – lies beneath.  I’m the one that can’t sit still on a Friday night waiting for friends to “get ready” while I worry what I might be missing out on at wherever we may be headed out. I’m the one that reads a novel so quickly simply because I’m eager to see the villain get his (or hers) in the end. And, yes, I’m the one who has on occasion, wanted to see the first date fast foward to the end of the aisle with me in a gown wishing the priest would hurry up and get it over already so I could just kiss him, dammit (my husband, not the priest).

Needless to say, I’ve had to practice patience. In fact, I blame my klutziness on rushing to get onto the next thing. I don’t just trip up and down steps to entertain people…I think it happens because my mind is already at the next place, and  because my feet are running so fast to keep up with it that I forget where I step, how I step and who -sometimes – I may step on. Maybe its perhaps that I’m so eager to drink life up that I gulp instead of sip – forgetting what the initial taste was like in the first place. Because life can be so darn interesting sometimes, that I can’t help but want to peek at the end, rip off the paper or push along traffic so I can see what’s up around the bend. At times, my impatience has caused me to miss out and truly enjoy what was happening right in front of me – to be in the moment. Sometimes I forget those amazing first dates; where his smile and story-telling I should have focused on rather than whether he would look good in moccasins and his shirt off mowing our lawn some day. I forget to take in the peacefulness and serenity of Christmas Eve mass, while I sit worrying about what the big guy in red will put under the tree that night. I mean, really, why rush? Why would someone work so hard to make a cheesecake, a pizza or a mouthwatering steak taste so good if I’m just going to rush through my meal, shoving five forkfuls in my mouth at at time, lest that it grow legs and run right off my plate.

Let’s take my recent move. I was in such a rush to get on to the next best thing, that I forgot to really take in and appreciate all that I had left behind. This is not something that I haven’t said to y’all before. I mean – we all know I was ready for the move to the big city and we all know what it took for me to continue in my transition. So, I will not digress back to my more recent musings. But the thing is, once I get to that next best thing – I think, now wait a minute, why was I in such a hurry again? Because when you rip the wrapping off, shut the book closed, park in your spot at work, swallow down the last bite – you gotta ask yourself – was it worth it? Was all that sitting on the edge of the seat “come on, come on, come on” worth it? Or was the journey itself something I should have focused on?
If someone asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I might say a crystal ball. I shamelessly desire a reassurance that I’m going to be happy at the end, that it’s all going to work out. That I’m going to get the guy, push the baby carriage somewhere along a tree-lined sidewalk, make important speeches in front of large audiences, and sip gin and tonics lakeside in my retirement years.  However, my desire for a crystal ball clouds the fact that the way that I live my life NOW is the true key in assuring that it’s all going to work out. There is no magic wand that someone is going to wave that will make it all better or turn out fabulous. It is the way I map the journey along the way that will cause my nerves to jump back under my skin and to breathe again at a normal rate.

Only when our journey end is near, do I really think we are in our right to imagine the next best thing. My mom tells me about the last days her mother – my grandmother – was alive. Never, my  mom tells me, did she ever hear her mother ever be in a rush or utter a word of impatience or hurry someone along. However, on the last days of her life, as my mother sat next to my grandmother in her hospital bed, suffering the quick and painful experience of pancreatic cancer, she heard my grandmother utter under her breath to no one my mother saw in the room but to someone none the less, “Come on, come on, hurry up, hurry up.”. It was the pain, I’m sure, that my grandmother wanted to hurry along. Not her life itself, but knowing that it was drawing near, she wanted to be free of the painful end of it in order to move onto what would come next for her in the afterlife.  I don’t know to this day  whom exactly my grandmother was speaking to, but to whomever – or whatever – it was, my grandmother knew that it was going to free her of her current pain. That what was to come, was indeed the next best thing. And she was confident that who and what she was leaving behind would be okay. Because at that moment, she was finally thinking about herself. For a woman who hosted countless Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving and Easter celebrations, raised three children, attended birthday parties and hosted lakeside gatherings for seven grandchildren, saw her husband off to a world war and back again…my grandmother I believe had the right to rush along the painful end for the sake of what gloriousness might come next for her. Her impatience at the moment was validated. And although we were all in pain from losing her, we all knew that it was for the right reason she rushed along that pain for what would came after.

We all are impatient at some point in our lives. Sometimes, when I wish the cashier would ring the items through just a little quicker ALREADY, I stop and think, you know, what would the extra few minutes gain me? The most recent relationship in my life has tested my patience – not in a bad way – but in a wonderful, sweet and most worth it kind of way. Because the time in between our visits, I’m able to reflect, breathe and take in what it means to just be with him. I’m able to look forward to the next time we are together, but at the same time, take in the great city and reality I’m currently living. And for right now, that time apart has caused me to remember what it means to appreciate and drink in life while still looking forward to what is next. I mean, what’s the rush? The way he smiles at me and takes my hand to walk along with him at his own peaceful, steady pace tells me that there’s nothing to worry about. And that we as a “we” will be worth the wait. That’s the kind of journey I have no desire to hurry through; because living the here and now only allows me the time to fully imagine and nurture the shape the “what next” might take.

That’s something worth honking my horn at.

Copyright 2011, Leah A. Flynn

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