Patience Grasshopper

Anyone who knows anything about me or has seen any of my social media knows that I am constantly on a search to better myself.  My children would probably tell you that I am NOT doing a good job with it.  I am inclined to agree with them.  As much as I try to better myself as a person, I know there is ONE thing that I cannot seem to get under control. That thing is my reaction to any and all stress factors.  And in that reaction usually comes my mouth.  I need a lot of work on my mouth.  I am very, very guilty of snap reactions and I can promise that no one could ever accuse me of being patient. I am not a patient person.  This, unfortunately, is reflected in my everyday life and my relationships with people, though I am considerably more patient with my friends than I am with my family.  I struggle with this greatly.  As I get more involved in my church and on a better path in a lot of other ways, this is one path I can’t seem to stay on.  Believe it or not, I work very hard to try and control this and the guilt is something I feel every single day.  I am very good at justifying my behavior, even when I know I am doing it. Well the kid has now been told 8 times to do something and hasn’t done it.  I just wanted this one little thing to get done and it hasn’t been.  I’m sick of listening to his or her excuses.  They just aren’t moving fast enough (most often in the morning, trying to get out the door).

Patience is a daily struggle. I’ve been tested on it many times and came out with my sanity somewhat intact, so I guess I consider that a win, but it isn’t necessarily a victory.  I have a poster on my wall of the Great Wall of China and under it is the quote by Lao-tzu “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  I know that, better than a lot of people.  My weight loss journey, for example, is certainly a thousand miles. I’m only a little more than half way there and it’s already taken me several years.  Believe me when I say that my impatience has to be violently shoved back down my throat when I meet people who lost twice as much in just a matter of months.  How unfair is that!  But it’s not. It’s not unfair.  Maybe those people were blessed with rapid weight loss, but maybe they don’t have a big (could be beautiful) house like I do or maybe those people were blessed with unexpected money but they don’t have the kind of friends that I have.  Everyone has a story and that is something I do remind myself of when patience takes a hike.  I guess I have improved my patience a little then (who knew!), because years ago I certainly didn’t care about another person’s story.  But overall, my patience is something I seek to change daily.  So be patient with me (the hypocrite) as I try to work on that, and don’t be afraid to give me little nudges to let me know when I am overreacting. I can’t promise that I won’t overreact then to your nudge, but I CAN promise that it will give me food for thought later on.

We can light 'em up, up, up

Life is short. And so worth living.  But are we living it to the fullest?  I know I’m not.  I try to, I really do, but I am not.  There are only a handful of things that I am doing that I really WANT to be doing.  I am hugging my kids and my husband. I am dancing.  I think that really ends the list.  Everything else in my life is far too tight and scheduled and I don’t get the opportunity to kick back and enjoy.  A blog post I read recently talked about the things you save until some unknown time later, like the good candles or lotions or soaps.  I’ve thought about that before.  When is ‘later’?  When will you burn that good candle that Aunt Cindy gave you or use that really nice lotion you just picked up at Bath and Body?  I am guilty of this.  This is how my life seems to go as well.  I save the ‘good’ things for later.  Why?  Why do I do that?  I don’t want to do that. I want to burn the candles now. I want to live life. Now. Not later, not at some unknown time, but now.

This is something that is on my mind at the beginning of nearly every year. How can I laugh more this year?  How can my children and husband laugh more? How can I be a better wife and mother to them? How can we enjoy our time together more? How can we grow closer?  How can I show them faith and build my own?  How can I spend more time with my friends and cultivate those relationships more? How can I bond more with my family? How can I change all of these things in the upcoming year? How can I live life to the fullest this year?  I don’t have the answers.  All I have is my willingness to keep trying.

New Year, New You?

Happy 2015.  It's a brand new year.  Okay, the calendar may say 2015, but let's face it, everything is the same.  I, along with most people, get the sense of being able to start anew, a fresh new year to  begin again.  In truth, I'm not beginning again.  That thing I was upset about on December 31st was still there when the clock struck midnight.  Nothing changed.  The only things that really happen when midnight hits is we will continue to write 2014 for the first 3 months of the year and we will feel like we have just been given a new timeline to accomplish the things we have not accomplished prior to now.  For example, we can now say, by the end of this year, I will lose x-number of pounds, I will do x-hours of charity work or give a charity x-amount of money. All by the end of the year, all by that timeline we now feel we have. I am not going to say I've imposed this "timeline" on myself, but it seems as good as any. In reality, my timeline is 'as soon as possible.'  

The one thing that does happen for me with the changing of the year is that it forces me to reflect on the last year. Was I as kind as I wanted to be? Did I help to create some more good memories for my children? Did I better myself as a person? I can honestly say that this last year I did make more strides toward all of that than I ever have before, BUT I'm still not where I'd hoped to be.  I know I will always be a work in progress, I know I can never be finished, but I had hoped to be a bit better.  I did learn quite a bit in the last year though, which hasn't happened in quite some time. This Christmas, as I was opening gifts, gifts I had personally asked for, I was not excited.  I was just not feeling it.  I was disappointed that there wasn't more family time, I was disappointed that life got so busy that we missed our annual tradition of watching The Polar Express. I was disappointed that we weren't curled up on a couch together watching some cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie or sitting in our church service listening to 3000 people sing Silent Night.  I was disappointed about the lack of intimacy and warmth rather than what gifts I did or didn't receive. That feeling of dissatisfaction and emptiness has been culminating for several years, but it was particularly strong this year. 

That being said, is it a New Year?  Yes.  Are things different because it's a new year?  Nope.  But they will be.  I want to use this time to reconnect to the people I care about and continue working on myself and my faith and my marriage. Always a work in progress.