Oh, metaphors.

 

This morning I was driving to work and I was feeling a bit anxious to get there. I knew I only had about an hour before my day full of meetings and wanted some time to get something done (Isn't that funny how in the nonprofit world, meetings are often the opposite of getting something done...but that's another blog entirely).  So I was a bit impatient to get there.  As I drove towards my turn toward the highway, I saw that a woman was biking beside me.  She was going just slow enough that I had to slow down but just fast enough that I couldn't' turn in front of her.  And in my impatience, I sped up and found that I had to go right past my turn. 

 

As I drove up and down strange one-way streets, trying to get back where I was going, I realized that my impatience actually cost me much more time than would patiently waiting for her to pass had been.

 

And then I yelled out loud, alone in my car.  DAMMIT! That was a METAPHOR!!!

 

 

 

What I realized is this:

 

My biggest fault is my impatience.   Impatience while driving leads me to dumb moves like that.  Impatience with my kids causes me to miss out on possibly lovely moments of connection.  Impatience at work causes me to ignore certain emails or spend meetings with my insides trying to crawl out my eyeballs because I just want it to be over....

 

That's no good.

 

So thank you woman on the bike this morning for making me think about this.  I need to slow down, take deep breaths and just spend car rides and meetings and watching my daughter spend twenty five minutes putting on an effing sock (oh sorry; did I say that?) breathing and being appreciative that I AM ALIVE.  And I have it pretty good.  I know that's not always possible. I'm not ever going to be the mom who has the time and patience to allow her children to smell every frickin' daisy in the driveway (well, I don't even have a driveway).   But. I can be more patient.  I can remember that all there is... is THIS.  NOW.  That's all I have.  And whether now is a meeting or a commute or a seemingly mundane domestic moment with my kids or a party or a concert or a plate of spaghetti or thirty uninterrupted seconds to talk to my partner... that's what I have.

 

And I need to be more patient with that.  And with myself.