Guns and Roses put it best. “Take it slow it will all work out just fine. All we need is a little patience.” Wow. I never thought I would say that out loud or in a blog. Guns and Roses are definitely not my goto guru on dealing with life’s little issues. It’s not like Slash has a podcast giving us relationship advice. But now that I think about it, maybe he should. If Slash can live through Axl Rose I’m sure he could give me pointers on how to deal with my parents! Slash, your next career is a phone call away!
I have been struggling with patience for the last few weeks in life, work and relationships.
In work, I spent more than an hour moving text in a facebook cover photo to make sure it looks great on facebook. Gee facebook, wouldn’t it be nice if you just gave us the dimensions of the grid where text no longer shows in mobile? Thank God for Canva and the ability to go back to make incremental changes!
In life, my parents are getting older and it seems to me that I have lost the ability to slow down and listen. My dad is recovering from a hip replacement surgery and my sister and I are desperate to get them out of the home they have lived in for 60 years. We aren’t awful children. Well at least as far as I can tell we aren’t awful children. We both have jobs, pay our mortgages, don’t ask for loans and can even pay for our own high blood pressure meds without putting our stuff on Craig’s List. However, we would like our parents to live in an assisted environment where they don’t have to worry about stairs, snow or upkeep of their yards. This move has been discussed for years, but neither of them want to make a giant change in their ’80’s. So it is up to my sister and I to be patient. Easier said than done. And it makes for a lot of funny phone calls between Philly and Syracuse.
In relationships people are either moving too fast or too slow for me. If I didn’t struggle against the tide I know it would be an easier journey. But forcing folks to move at my pace never turns out well. So again, I’m trying to learn the lesson of patience, even if the patience is within myself. And sometimes that is the hardest effort of all. Quieting the voice inside our heads saying we must go faster, better, or smarter take an intense amount of psychic will and energy.
I love baseball. My dad explained that the word “fan” comes from the word fanatic. Right now, I don’t worry about my Mets because it is a long season. So if we lose one to the Braves or the Phillies I remind myself, it is a long way to October. And maybe that is the key to the patience game.