Patience is a Tough Virtue to Develop!

I used to find myself wanting to slow down time. I needed some extra time to soak in everything around me before it all passed by. Now I feel completely the opposite. I would love to speed time up and hurry toward the future. I am feeling very impatient these days.

When it comes to weight loss, it is working and I am being consistent, but it goes much slower than I would like. I want to wake up one morning and see a huge difference on the scale, but it only creeps down a pound or two every few days. And sometimes, it seems to stay the same or even go up a pound or so, even when I am doing all of the right things. It is so hard to wait, but I am determined to keep going until I reach my goal weight. I am not about to give up! I just hate that it takes so long. Plus, I really don't see a huge difference yet. I've lost a total of 15 pounds now, but I don't think I look very different. I have a long way to go. And I will continue, I just wish it would go faster. Much faster!

As to my other goals, my graduate school plans have also been extended. When looking back, I really am amazed at how fast everything seemed to go. But now, I am almost finished and suddenly, time began to squeak by again. I was hoping to finish by December, but it looks like I will need to stretch it out until May. Not a huge difference, but still...I am feeling impatient. I want to hurry up and get my degree in hand so that I can begin looking for jobs in my new career. I am so ready to get to work these days. I will be doing an internship in the fall, so I will get some hands-on experience in the "real world." But I am anxious to begin my new life as a career woman and put my life as a graduate student behind me. I guess I have the equivalent of "senior-itis"! I remember it well! Seniors eager to graduate and go into the world. I guess that's what this feeling is all about.

At home, I am surprised that my feelings regarding my kids growing up has changed so much. I went from crying about their upcoming teens to anxiously awaiting their graduations. I think my son was turning 10 when the sadness hit. I began to realize that their childhood was ending soon, and I became very sentimental. Everything was "the last"--the last time they would do certain things. He will be 14 soon, and my daughter will be 12. I have been through a major transition in the past few years. I went from "Do they have to grow up?" to "I wish they'd hurry up and grow up." Don't get me wrong--I love them very much and I am enjoying every last minute with them. But I am extremely nervous about what lies ahead during the high school years. I am remembering my own high school years. Lots of fun for me, but a heck of a ride for my parents. And now it is my turn. Sometimes I wish I could skip this stage! But I am trying to focus on the positive things about raising teenagers. They really are great kids--and I know they will become wonderful adults. They may not give me as hard of a time as I did my parents during my teen years--or maybe they will be worse. Honestly, it scares the heck out of me! So, I find myself wanting to hurry up through this stage so I can get to the next one--the one where I am free to do what I want to do. And they are also anxiously counting the years until that day. We all are anxiously awaiting our "Independence Day"--but we still love each other very much and are having a good time together. It's so hard to be patient sometimes!

So here is to clock-watching and calendar-counting: the daily chore of the impatient. Someone needs to tell those people (including myself) that time goes at a consistent pace throughout eternity. While it may seem to speed up or slow down, it really stays at a regulated pace. There are still 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 365 days in a year, ... Funny how we KNOW that but still can't truly grasp that concept. Truth is: "As sand through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives." And I will sit here and watch every darn grain of sand as it passes through--sometimes admiring the beauty of each grain, and sometimes cursing the fact that there still are so many grains left to go. And one day, when the sand has all passed through, I know I will feel sadness and will be wishing that I could turn the hourglass over again. But sometimes we just can't do that. My goal is to take a closer look at some of those grains and try to memorize the details of its beauty before it is gone.