I am thankful for patience. I don’t usually have much of it to speak of, but when I do, I certainly am happy to have it. Patience has come up as a theme for me in recent days. On Sunday I needed thirty minutes to myself. I knew Chuncho was going away on Tuesday, and that those thirty minutes were quite likely going to be the only minutes in the next 7 days that I’d get for only me. So, I went to the grocery store, got the few things that I needed from there and then splurged on a grande mocha from Starbuck’s. I don’t usually have mochas, but I needed one. My patience had been running short all day, and it continued to do so as I drove home. Twice I ran yellow lights and twice, the book I read when I’m waiting to pick Sweetman up from school came slamming out of its spot in the console, as if to say, “Hey lady, take it down a notch!” The book is “Buddhism for Mothers” and regardless of whether you are a Buddhist or not, it has some easy to read, straight forward, common sense advice for managing yourself and your life with children to promote, you got it, patience. And an overall sense of calm and well-being. A reminder to stop and savour the moment, and not always be so concerned with getting here or going there or what’s happening next. Be in the now. And be ok with the fact that yes, your kid may just have really pissed you off. So, tell him so. Acknowledge the emotion. “Sweetman, mummy feels really frustrated right now.” And in doing so, in acknowledging that emotion, just that recognition of it there – the frustration – hello, frustration, you make nasty bedfriends, it takes some of the wind out of the sails of the emotion. And that, right there, adds another dose of patience to my dwindling pile.
That, and everytime I respond to Sweetman that way, with the acknowledgement of the emotion, without freaking out, without yelling, without grinding my teeth down to little calcified nubs, I am teaching myself to respond that way next time. I’m slowly but surely beating down a mental path of responding by acknowledging the emotion without letting it own me. And, I think that’s fairly powerful. If I can own the emotion, recognize the emotion, feel the emotion but don’t give in to the emotion. This is pretty huge for me.
And then, patience strikes again on Tuesday. Different kind of patience this time.
I can't remember the last time I listened to this song, but it was playing in the grocery store on Tuesday, and lo and behold, I still remember all the words. I hope that you appreciate that I visited youtube to find this video. I mostly can't handle youtube because I can't NOT read the comments posted on all the videos even though I think you have to have a prerequisite IQ of 12 to post comments on youtube. The asinine inflammatory nature of the majority of these comments grates me. The remainder are wholly uninterpretable.
So, that was patience, the second part this week.
Patience, part three, struck only minutes ago when I was wondering when "The Crazies" is going to come out on DVD.
Because I am really, really looking forward to this movie, and it seems to be taking nine years to come out. Yes, nine years. Did I mention that this post is about patience and my lack of it?! Anyways, I went to www.rogersvideo.ca in the hopes that it would be listed as a new release, but no dice. It appears as though I must carry on with this patience business until June 29th. Frempf! In any case, another good reminder of this path to patience that I am on.
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