I m patient

I’m patient…impatient…it’s a fine line.  I like to dance back and forth.  Some days I can wait for anything without any problem.  Other days I’m so impatient that I become crabby and kinda intolerable.  The root of my impatience is lack of control.  If I don’t know exactly what’s happening in my life I get anxious and impatient.  The same thing happens when I can’t figure out where my life is heading.  Currently, I’m kind of holding on for dear life as I’m thrown into the tornado that is my life.  I’m trying to just be along for the ride, but it’s increasingly harder the longer this goes on.

Even some of my favorite hobbies and pastimes require a large dose of patience.  Writing, photography-ing, working at my jobs, hanging out with friends, everything I want to do requires patience.  Even eating and sleeping!  The sad fact is that life requires patience.  For some, this comes naturally and is done quite gracefully.  For others, being patient is torture and typically involves a lot of suffering.  In case I haven’t mentioned it, I hate waiting.  When I sit down to write a blog post, I want my brain to be well-organized and ready so I can just copy and paste my thoughts from my brain to the screen.  However, I currently have over 50 half-written blog posts saved on here and even more still in my head.  It irritates me to no end when I can’t finish a post.  I have at least two that I’ve sent to friends to proofread and they simply said that it was good, but I wanted to say more.  That was exactly it.  I want to say more, but I’m not exactly sure what or how.  So, in my typical Rebecca fashion, I give up and move on to the next best thing.  Bigger and better.  In an attempt to out-do my slacker self who can’t finish a post, I sit down and write a 900 word blog post and throw it up all within an hour.  So really, my lack of patience pays off in that situation.  Whatever works.

Photography is different, however.  While with blogging, I’m okay with messing up, my photography must be flawless.  You think I’m kidding.  I’ll bend over backwards with my arms in the air for ten minutes waiting to get the right shot (and have) or I will make myself later than I’d like to be in order to finish up on something I’ve envisioned that I want to make a reality.  Photography is one of my greatest passions and I will accept nothing less than perfection from myself simply because, in the most humble way possible, I know I can do it.  I can achieve perfection with my photography so why would I settle for a blurry shot or a crooked shot or a slightly misframed shot?

My standards are not the point here.  The point is that for certain things, one can wait.  If you truly care and you can focus on it, you can wait.  Well, that’s part of it for me anyway.  I have trouble focusing on things.  If I can’t focus, it makes waiting harder.  If I can’t sit down and spit out a blog post, I get frustrated and leave.  If I can’t focus on a craft project I’m working on, I can’t wait for the paint or glue to dry.  I can’t wait for the pattern to finish loading, I can’t wait for all of the colors to come together to make the final product.  I can’t do it.  But I’ll camp out all night for the sunrise shot.  If I truly and deeply care about something, I can wait days, weeks, months, years for it to work out.  I’ve made a few friends that way.  If I notice that someone has admirable qualities, I’m not one to rush up and befriend them.  I’m not that person.  I don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t like me (more on that here) so I’m more likely to take my time making friends.  Yes, that causes a lot of pain, hassle, and struggle on my end, but once I have a friend, it’s worth it.  That said, I don’t have many friends, but I cherish the ones that I have.  My few friends are amazing.  My friends are definitely worth waiting for.  I waited until I was ready to talk to them, I waited until I was ready to hang out with them, and I waited until I was ready to trust them.

Waiting doesn’t solve all the problems.  Some friends, I’ve waited for and trusted and they hurt me.  I’ve had my heart broken by people I thought I could trust and that hurts more than I could have ever imagined.  You don’t have to have a romantic relationship to have your heart broken.  It’s more about the person than their place in your life.  Waiting for the right people can help, but in the end, it all comes down to decisions and the consequences that follow.

Life is hard, patience is tough, people can be unpredictable, but don’t be afraid to go out and live your life to the fullest.  The cowardly lion is cool and all, but being fearless and patient seems like a pretty awesome combo.

I wrote my last post on patience over a year ago and I think I hated it so much when someone read it to me the other day that it’s now private.  A lot of my views on patience are very much the same, but as I learn more about myself and gain more experience,  I discover new things and feel the need to add them in and make them a part of my displayed thoughts.  That said, this is also a lesson to me.  Learn from past mistakes and don’t be afraid to redo.  That might have been what was needed to be said a year ago, but that’s not necessarily what I need to say today.  Things don’t always remain the same and sometimes, change is good.