Once upon a time I was known for being patient, primarily in my personal life. My deep-seated secret was that this patience didn’t come naturally, because part of the mystique was acting as though it did, and contrary to form I pulled that off quite well. Since that time, I have taken pains not to perpetuate, perpetrate or perform mystique in any way shape or form. Honesty and clarity are what I strive for instead, though perhaps I’m mistaken in characterizing it as a zero-sum scenario.

The past month has been exasperating, and the next few weeks promise more of the same. Progress, when it takes place, is eked out in the merest increments. On a daily basis, I confront the fact that I hate to wait, but still I must. No wonder I’m meditating on the fate of my once-vaunted power to wait patiently for good things to come my way, or even just for things to happen.

Earlier tonight, knitting away on this blanket that seems to be taking forever although it is a fairly tiny specimen and something I’m eager to finish since its intended recipient has already made her entrance (knitting blankets is a huge timesuck), I finally realized what I’ve traded some of that patience for, and it’s pretty good.

Instead of transcending impatience I’m able to not just acknowledge its presence in my emotional state, but actually feel it coursing through my veins, with the agitated energy that makes anticipation and accomplishment much fuller experiences than they otherwise would be.

The sense of urgency I used to feel about my various works – the perfection of other people’s weddings, the professional-strength binding of official documents, the feeding of the half-dozen fervent high school vegans and their hordes of not-so-particular classmates – is now mine to apply to my own life, to the betterment of the quality of my experiences and those I care about for reasons separate from doing my job. I still do my current job, and do it well, but it fits into my life rather than being my entire life. And so I can embrace the impatience, and feel all the more alive for it.