Thoughts on Patience.

It is Saturday. The sky is flat, a shade of harsh grey that is not remotely inspiring or comforting or anything much really. Drab is perhaps the best way to describe it. I have work piled up all around & am wishing I could ignore it in favour of some gentle knitting by the fire, but I am already feeling the threads pulling away from me where work is concerned and seven day weeks are a necessary to merely keep on top of it all just now.

My head is full of all I want to do: Knitting, sketching, painting, making this little house work better than it is just now. Sorting is at the base of most of my thoughts and I am feeling the need to improve, move forward both at home and in my work. If only I had more energy. Hmm, isn't that always the way? The mind is willing and the body retaliates with a bout of labrynthitis that had me stumbling to the floor as Lucy chatted to me. Quite funny really, almost as funny as keeling over in the bathroom as the room turned itself upside down. I only wanted to clean my teeth!

Common sense says to rest, but I don't want to (she whined in a childlike way); I want to create, make great strides, grow my business, become....something, I-don't-know-what and I want it all now. Sighs deeply in despair at her own impatience. Thought that was improving with age, but apparently not.

This leads me to thinking. Patience is a funny thing. When younger I wanted everything to happen fast; why wait if you can make things happen now, after all? I walked with great strides and would stay up all night if necessary to move furniture until it looked 'right' rather than just 'live with it for a bit' as I would regularly be told. I still hate that phrase. If it's wrong and you know it's wrong then move it! I would feel annoyance when people said they were tired all the time, or wanted to nap an afternoon away. Whatever for when the world is out there waiting for you to make things happen?

Time walks quickly doesn't it? Before you know it you are a family of seven children, a business, a house crumbling around you, a partner, a large garden holding ducks & hens & fruit &... you are whatever you make happen. Suddenly the big hand moves forward and you notice you have learned a little patience, that most desirable of traits. You can hold your tongue a bit better; you can allow a few days to pass before finally accepting that the dresser looks better on the other wall and will need to be moved. You pat yourself on the back. Good girl, your head says. Isn't that better?

Well, frankly no, it is not! I find that with patience I have become lethargic. I miss the enthusiasm that made me such a fidget to be around. I miss the energy that went with me everywhere. I miss the moving of mountains (or furniture) and the bringing of change. 

I realise how much of this is mindset, messages fed constantly to oneself when things become a little over-whelming that become habit thus guaranteeing they become self-fulfilling. I am frustrated at myself for allowing it to happen and determine to stop. of course, a shiny new year is a good time for this isn't it? I have plans and mean to take control, whatever that means. I just need the world to stop spinning quite so fast - both literally and metaphorically - so that I can get going, make things happen. And I will...

          Just not today.  x