Patience.

[temporus]

When I look back on this past year, I thought that what would strike me most was the amount and breadth of change in my life.  After all, my wife and I went from free-spirited types who could travel pretty much anywhere on the drop of a hat, to dog owners, to first time parents.  I formally joined a writing group.  A gaming group that had been a lot of fun, and running for a good number of years now, ended up disbanding.  Even at work, there have been the winds of change blowing in.

But really, what strikes me the most about this past year was how much patience I had to develop over the course of it.  Now there might be some who read this journal and laugh at the thought of me, having to learn about patience.  I can assure you, that my impulsive nature not only exists, but is rather well developed.  As much as this has been a year of change, and it truly has been, it occurs to me that much of what changes have occurred have all exercised my patience.  In this sense, by exercised, I mean given it a good work out, like at a gym.  So while I may not have become more physically fit this year (sadly a goal that I still pay not nearly enough attention to) I have been working the muscles of my patience.

Work, for example has been a year of waiting on the edge for changes to happen.  A year of waiting for the hammer to fall--and for us to see what we can pick up from the pieces.  A year later, and that hammer still hangs in the air, poised not, perhaps over our heads as we may have originally thought, but ready to drop on our workspace, and to set things into motion.  Some changes did take place, but I think it will be come time yet, before we understand the ramifications of those changes.  I'm not foolish enough to believe that there are none, but I do hold out some hope that the end result will be beneficial in some way that I don't yet understand.  Still, I think it's unwise to try to predict years and years into the future what changes there will be in my career, as IT is almost the very definition of chaos, constantly changing.  The only thing I can count on is that in some way, my job will evolve into something different from the work I do today.  If I am lucky, I might be able to help guide the path of that change.  Then again, I might not be the best one to always set that path.  At least twice before in my life I thought I knew the path of my career, and had to go back to the drawing board.  For now though, I have resolved to wait only in the back of my mind.  Yes, there are changes coming, yes things may change either minimally, or drastically, and its difficult to know which until those changes are imminent.  While a part of me keeps its eye on that ball watching for where it lands, the rest of me will be getting on with the business of getting on.  Things need to be done.  What I have come to understand, is that I need to do what I do.  Do it to the best of my ability, and do the best I can for my company.  And I will push forward, until I am told to stop.  Not in defiance, because my goal is not to be defiant.  But because I've allowed waiting to become a focus of my attention, instead of moving forward.  Curtsy while you think and all that.

Writing has been a difficult year, though not without some advancement.  I joined a writing group, which has helped me to put a new layer of focus on my writing.  However, as with any such venture, you garner what you are willing to gamble, and thus far, I've put myself out there only a little.  The major focus of my writing attention this year was in finishing a novel.  I think it's somewhat sad, but very accurate to phrase it in that fashion.  The focus was much less on writing a novel as it was on finishing a novel.  There were bursts of writing where I would accomplish tens of thousands of words in a month.  Often though, I allowed myself to burn out.  Put so much pressure to produce more of the work, so that I could have a finished draft that I eventually had to step away for a day, a week, or even a month.  Yes, sometimes that was because of life events.  But it would most certainly be a lie to say, that even in the darkest hours, I couldn't have written even a few hundred words.  That is how it ended.  When I had learned enough patience, that I couldn't sprint my way through the whole damn novel, but that I had to pace myself for it, like a marathon, then I was able to make the final progress needed to finish up the work.  It still took longer than I would have liked, and there were some repercussions to that, not leaving myself enough time to work on the short stories that were a part of my goal for the year.  I did, however complete two new short stories.  But, yet again, here I sit with "complete" works, and do not push on to the all important step.  Until just a month ago, when I finally put out a submission.  It had been a long time, and I forgot what that means, waiting.  Again with the waiting.  This too is something I need to get over.  It's not an editor's duty to drop everything, read my story, judge it and respond.  It's my duty to write, and to submit, and to write again.  I guess that's just what I have to do.

My new puppy, Pippin the ten pound mop with legs, has been an enormous exercise of patience.  From the most simple aspects, such as walking him, and waiting for him to take care of business so that I could get back inside out of the cold, to his constant search for nearly anything paper, so that he might tear it apart and attempt to consume it.  The training classes, where I had to understand that the only way to be successful at training the dog would be consistency and patience.  Of course, that's not easy to accept.  My previous pet experience was with ferrets, and to be honest, there's so much less to be concerned with them.  With the ferrets, they had a cage, and a litter pan, and they mostly knew how to use it.  So keeping up with them didn't involve housebreaking in the way it did a puppy.  Nor did it involve long walks to burn off a puppy's energy.   But all of it, training him not to nip (though he still backslides) to heel, to come, the walks, the picking up after his mess.  Cleaning up the accidents.  The whining, the crying, the barking.    All of it, I think was just a way to teach me enough patience so that I just might be ready for the next major change in my life.

The little man.  My son.  Not even a month old, and all ready, my whole life is topsy-turvy.  As I said to one friend, I may have a dozen nephews and nieces, and I may have changed some diapers and babysat, and all that.  But none of that can compare to what it is like to live every moment with a child.  Yet even before he arrived, there was yet still measures of patience that I had to endure.  From the simplest, are we pregnant?  Through a few months of some testing, that appears to have all gone well, but nonetheless there were some hard weeks here and there throughout.   Then the waiting for him to arrive.  Unfortunately he took after me, and arrived late.  Though perhaps it is fortunate that he didn't take after my wife and arrive two months early.   He is here though, and now I begin to see a purpose in this year.  To stretch my patience, to grow it, so that I can look beyond the 2 AM fussing that takes an hour of walking around to settle him back down, beyond the crying as I change his diapers.   Beyond all the hundreds of little things that I might not have been able to do before this year.   Instead I just see him, and I'm able (most of the time) to let all the rest melt away, and see that joy that is my son.

I'm sure more times will come my way to push my patience even further. I'm still not a patient man. But perhaps, I won't mind so much the learning, or the work, to expand that portion of my being.

Comments

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And though I had originally intended to get this post done before the new year started, I think it is a bit fitting that it wasn't complete until the new year.