Testing Myself

If patience means being understanding and tolerant, then I am super patient, but if it means staying calm in a trying moment, then I am not patient. Nor have I ever been patient. Being patient has never been one of my strong suits.

On more than one occasion I have been asked to “Just be patient.” or told “You can wait.” hearing these phases always makes it a million times more difficult to actually be patient or wait. Whenever I’m told these things my patience is tested even more. I remember the many times when I was younger that I would beg my mom to take us to the beach and she would tell me “You have to wait, it’s too late in the day to head out now.” (My mom liked to get out of the house by nine in the morning if we were going to do a day trip) and I remember this making me feel like the next day would never come and I would never see the ocean again which then led to me crying and probably locking myself away in my room like many children before me, have done. Later came the realization that I was still not going to get to the beach after pouting in my room for a few hours. Then stomping my way down the stairs to apologize to my mother while toeing at the ground and not making eye contact, promising that “Tomorrow I’ll be better and wait to go to the beach.” even when the both of us knew that we would go through the same fight if we didn’t get out of the house before midmorning. As I have gotten older I have realized that this was not the best reaction to being told to wait because in the end it never actually helped me get anywhere and I still had to wait until the next day. Now I know that heading over to the beach at three in the afternoon isn’t very reasonable when you consider how long it takes to get to the beach, the lowering temperature, the time we would want to spend there, and the time that it takes to get home.

I have definitely learned to ask my mom to drive us over to the beach while she is having her morning coffee and is in her best mood. If she says we have to wait, I no longer complain out loud, I just stew in my head and wait until we can go to the beach at a better time. As time has passed and as I have grown into a proper person and not an impatient child, I have realized that having patience can pay off in the end and perhaps get me to the beach at a reasonable time.

“Beach” by sabl3t3k is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.