Out of Patience

Tue, 11/05/2024 - 12:41

I have run out of patience. Can’t get more at the store or from my neighbor. I guess I will have to wait until the patience compartment fills up all on its own. So there you go, I have to be patient to have patience.

I have run out of waiting. Can’t get more at the store or from my neighbor. I guess I will have to be patient until the waiting compartment fills up all on its own. So there you go, I have to wait. Patiently.

One of the things I am not out of is angst. That compartment is overflowing. I have plenty of worry, too. Concern overfilled its bucket long ago. Anger has combined with frustration and put a slightly muddy color over everything.

I have lots of work to do here to clean up the mess. Lots of sorting and clarifying. I get some help from rationality whenever I encounter it, and that goes a long way. But the job is hard, and rationality often gives way to a numb inertia, the dark and sedentary kind, like molasses of the mind.

I walk out of the room when the news goes rambling on and on, burying me with fear, and head straight for my crossword puzzle or solitaire. Those calm me down a bit, distract my overwhelmed thinking processes..

Then I get a message from an online friend, or a card comes in the mail, and I remember that I am still connected to kind people. People who care about the world, who care about their part in it, and who care about me. Does it settle everything? No, of course not. But what it does do is connect me to the kind of reality I need. Things settle down. The patience compartment begins to fill and suddenly waiting isn’t quite so hard.

I have a very dear friend who spontaneously drops things at my doorstop when I need them most. How does she know? She’s got the gift. She knows. Today it was snacks to help with the tedium, the nail-biting, hand wringing, pacing sort of day it is. The muddy color is draining away, a bit of energy is neutralizing a bit of the inertia.

I know that acknowledging what is real and what is hard and what is impossible and what I can and cannot do to change things much bigger than myself is the right thing to do. I acknowledge all of that. Often.

But oh, please, dear Universe dear Random Chance dear God wherever we find them -- please let the good, the kind, the rational, and the positive prevail. Please. Please let there be light in all of this darkness, and fill our empty spaces with hope for our future and the future of this lovely, pretty planet.