Friday, February 24, 2012

Free Fallin'



I have been very blessed over the last few months to have many opportunities to write about positive changes I have been making.  Today I want to share with you my regression.

I have a toddler.  Ergo, I have stress.  This is not shocking to anyone, nor to myself.  But even having a very clear understanding and anticipation that a boulder is going to fall on you doesn't make it feel any lighter when it does.  This day.....oh, this day.  This day has been a shake-your-head kind of day.  I am lucky enough to have a job that allows me to work longer days and be off on Fridays.  I know that this is a privilege many working moms would love to have.  And days like today make me feel completely ungrateful and wasteful of this beautiful privilege.  Because really, my most stressful days at work don't even hold a candle to what I feel when there is stress on Friday.  Work would be easy.

He is going to be three in a few months.  There has been some turnover in the teachers at his daycare.  He has been fighting eye, nose, chest cold stuff for two weeks.  I get it, he has stress too, and good reason to act the way he is today.  Every request I make floats out in the air never to be noticed.  Every question I ask to get a positive response elicits a no.  All movement at the speed of turtle.  Blank stares.  Every one of mommy's buttons pushed, pushed, and pushed again.  Is any of this behavior really that awful?  No.  But OH MY STARS does it test my patience.

Patience.  That virtue is one that I clearly have not passed the exam on, because God continues, and continues, and continues, to keep teaching me lessons.  Most of every difficult time I can think back on, when I came out on the other side of it, I was pretty sure that it was meant to be a lesson in patience.  And every time, I wonder if I finally learned it correctly that time.  So either I am the worst patience student and am going to be spending every class, every detention, and every summer school continuing to try and get this, or I am dead wrong and completely missing the point.  But, I'm pretty sure the point is patience.  And I'm not good at it.

I am pleased with myself that instead of cozying up in the corner with a party-size bag of M&Ms during nap time, I only grabbed three pieces of dark chocolate, which I am just finishing up now as I write.  Thank you, dear reader, for helping me bring my blood pressure down and hopefully step back from the ledge before nap time ends.

2 comments:

  1. Someone told me once that they think of patience as a spiritual discipline. That made me feel more comfortable with needing to learn it. Not sure why patience is something I expect to just *have* rather than something I need to keep learning. Can't I just hurry up and know how to be patient already?

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  2. I really like that view. I too imagine patience as something everyone just has and then loses, not something that you have to work to attain. I like that much better. Thank you.

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