Not Quite Patient
November 11, 2011 
Patience is a wonderful thing. So is impatience.
I am willing to wait a long time for what I really want.
I didn’t marry until I was forty. And as I approach my twentieth anniversary, I know it was definitely worth the wait.
So why do I endorse impatience too?
Because when you impatiently fill your waiting time with other stuff, that other stuff can be amazing.
I’m too impatient to JUST WAIT. I waited for the right guy, but in the meantime I didn’t sit around. I got a really good education, an established career, and a decent nest egg.
I have a manuscript patiently waiting for the right agent or publisher to recognize its worth. But impatiently, I have filled my time writing little blogposts that have unexpectedly provided me with more joy (and new friends) than I could have ever imagined.
I believe in buying fabulous clothes for my current body while still trying to lose more weight. I believe in emphasizing my eye makeup while waiting for a bad haircut to grow out. And most of all, I believe in rocking with my girlfriends while patiently waiting for the slow number that may coax my husband out onto the dance floor.
This Spring I planted a little stick of an apple tree. I will have to wait for years to see my tree give me baskets of delectable fruit. I’m patient. I went to my favorite orchard this fall and picked a bushel of fine luscious apples.
But my little tree was impatient. It produced one fine luscious apple.
Way to go, tree!
Humor. Patience
Reader Comments (14)
And so are you saying that everything you needed to know about life you learned from Mother Nature, Nancy?!! :) I love this. That one apple is bright and colorful enough to hang on your Christmas tree this year. Two sides of one coin: patience and impatience. Makes sense to me! Beautiful post.
I think it is all about finding the balance between patience and impatience, I struggle with it sometimes, well, I am almost 40, so still time to learn
In the end - you always have me laughing!!!
Yes - there are always those unexpected rewards in those moments in between..those moments you call the 'impatient' ones. And - here's to the 'impatient' little sapling of a tree in all of us...:-)!
Way to go tree? I say Way to Go Nancy!!!!!
What a wonderful way to use impatience. All the while I have been trying to learn to be still and wait. Your ways sounds much more fun and rewarding.
Great photo and way to look at those waiting periods. Which are simply times of doing many other things, some to make "it" happen and some just to enjoy now. This also gives me hope as I want to plant an apple tree but figure I'll have moved or died before it produces apples.
Way to go! Wonderful post and great shot
I love the photo. The observation of impatience as a virtue is wonderful, and I agree it has enriched your life.
love this. gardening, more than anything in life, has taught me the value of patience.
but you are so right, it is best not to waste one bit of that in-between time!
I love the balance between the two, enriching your life.
I love the idea of filling your patient moments with impatient ones and stuff that can be done in a hurry.
Your lone apple though was a surprise gift - perhaps for your acquiescence to wait for the larger crop for such a long time.
That little apple tree was definitely for you!!! A kindred spirit, so to say.
I love your post, Nancy, because I can empathize with this mix of patience and impatience, I'm very similar and so far it has been good.
Is it a case of "The apple did not fall far from the tree?", not sure but a really funny post nonetheless, Nancy :-)
Fun! I'm still looking for the balance between the two... Maybe I should check our garden ;).