Nothing
happens when you want it to; everything occurs when you don't. The
first brings boredom and restlessness, the second cussing, out loud
and mostly to whatever four walls you're contained in, unless your
'thing' is to blow up at inanimate objects. Life is not a game, it's a lesson in patience.
No, not cards, though in youth (and I've been told not just my own) they killed many a bored hour especially if you only had yourself to play against, but forbearance. And that's a far worse word to describe patience, for it can't be mistaken for anything but a delay, a another wait which though it might be short can feel long, or it goes on so long the thing you're waiting for is forgotten so that when it finally occurs it either comes as a surprise or brings dismay.
And when the thing, the event, the person is not just late, it's too late the excitement you might have felt had it arrived on schedule (to your exacting timetable) has diminished as something else came along and took its place; and if that's the case it can set off a whole sequence of emotions, none of which you want but are now beset by and which set you squirming.
However, when the thing is held in thought and much anticipated, its arrival no matter how late is always welcomed. Just as if it's materialised from a dream: you never thought the day would come etc. And yet the journey from order to delivery is a trial, which few have the patience for.
If you've always been a bit short in temper and short with time, then having to exercise a weak, or even non-existent, trait means holding your tongue when it doesn't want to be held; means humming tum te dum when really you want to scream; means feeling under duress but being unable to show it because if you did you'd just look like a child having a tantrum. And God Forbid that should take place in a public space like an auditorium or the lino floor of a frozen food retailer.
The aforementioned weren't just examples but also real incidents which I would like to point out happened when I was a toddler, and toddlers, as most adults know, have short fuses. Some adults do too but most aren't prone to such displays, (I should hope not!) though can behave appallingly at times. Ask my mother. Childhood is never far away when your parents are around, even if the roles have somewhat reversed, where the gap has narrowed to the extent that each family member (senior and junior) regress in each other's company, and yes, it does make for a very confused state of affairs.
That, however, is a family matter I probably shouldn't have shared. But what's done is done. So, let us go back to forbearance, which coincidentally babying or parenting calls for. Rather a lot of too. Huh, that only occurred to me now, and at the same moment as: don't try to type in the dark. My accuracy rate has plummeted. Severely. Backspace. Backspace.
Patience is a virtue. No it's not, it's a goddam nuisance. Something you're told you should have. Or try to encourage if it doesn't come naturally. Well, it's never come organically to me. Discipline, yes; I can withhold myself from anything even if I don't really want to but have made up my mind to, although others I know label that as 'stubborn', so yes, I guess you can say I'm that too. You never can see (or will admit to readily) these qualities in yourself, though you might be quick to see them in somebody else. Of course, there are those who will be kinder and will call these idiosyncrasies, as if they're endearing. Some are, some are mildly irritating, some are infuriating and raise more than tuts and eye-rolls as your tolerance reaches its upper limit.
It's how quickly you lose it that's interesting...great sitcom moments would be born if you were stood outside your own body. For your annoyance can be directed at you with no other involved: nobody else in the room but a ball of fire manically humming tum te dum, tum te dum, dum, dum, dum...in the hope this will instead reduce you to a bed of orange-red embers.
Picture credit: The Banquet, 1958, Rene Magritte
