Off to check the mail box!

Waiting.  I suppose I have never really been very good at this art. 

There was of course a time when some waiting was wonderful. Though I can pretty much say I have grown out of this phase of enjoying the concept, as a child, I can remember there were times when waiting was rather tantalizing.  I can almost feel the trill of excitement, the goose pimpling running up my arms as I waited in anticipation of whatever it was that had me on my toes in expectation.  Perhaps it was waiting for my Dad to come home when we had something planned, like building the club house.  I don't think we ever finished that project, but I do remember having a lot of fun working on it.  Or perhaps it was waiting for Mom to come home after we had just finished reading something for one of her classes and I knew she would need to start something new.  She always had the best things to read and if I wasn't a total pain she read them to me before bed. There was any number of things that could set one to waiting with breathless anticipation when I was a child. 

And of course there was the waiting that was incredibly tedious.  The waiting for summer to finally end so I could get back to school.  I know most of you will never admit this, but its true, that last couple of weeks was harsh.  I was simply re-hashing what I had been doing all summer.  I was straining at the bit to get back to school and see everyone that I had not seen  during the break.  Sure, summer was fun, but after awhile the long days all became the same and what I looked forward to was the change to the rhythm of fall and of school. I was definitely not good at waiting for this. It took forever for those days to pass.  Waiting in line for anything that I did not want to come to pass, like doctor's or dental visits those times were also difficult.  I am pretty sure just about everyone is a wiggler when it comes to these.

Funny, but now I find it much easier to sit patiently in the waiting room for the doctor or the dentist than I do for just about anything else in my life.  I guess we have gotten very used to a world where information comes to us at hyper speed, so waiting for someone to drop you a line, send you a quick hello or even to get something in the mail, seems like torture.  It is almost painful to open the email account and not find the message there.  And worse yet is the temptation to open the account repeatedly throughout the day - after all - email is practically instant - so I could have only just missed the missive I am waiting for - and then I would have been waiting for no reason.  Of course opening up the box to find the item having not arrived is even more disappointing the second, third, fourth and so on time around. 

I have discovered that I am truly not good at waiting.  I get rather pissy about it in fact.  It takes all of my will to not send off messages to those with whom I think I am corresponding and ask when I can expect them to GET WITH THE PROGRAM.  But I do manage, as some how I understand that it is my impatience and my issue, not theirs.  They are not trying to keep me waiting, they just have things to tend to, and I will be dealt with in good time.  So I push it down and try to put my doctor's office calm in place.  After all if I have learned that fidgeting there will only rumple the magazine, then I should be able to control my irrational bursts of feeling neglected by the mail gods when the communications I seek are neither electronically delivered nor revealed through the U. S. Postal Service.

So if you are at all like I am, and over accustomed to the idea of instant communication gratification, and occasionally beset by disgruntlement with those who are not instantly providing such gratificiation, take heart - You are not alone and take heed - Patience is indeed a virtue that not only patients should practice..........

Just thinking out loud .................. and hoping to find the humor in it..........

Off to check the mail box!