Patience

Patience is a virtue, and one that I do not have.

At all.

On a patience scale of one to ten - ten being Ghandi, six being Rhett Butler and one being Scarlett O Hara - I`m a 0.2. If I don`t get exactly what I want, exactly when I want it (which is always absolutely immediately), I throw my toys, my blanket, my dummy and most of the mattress out of the pram, and create such a hullabaloo that I make myself sick. In fact, I`m worse than a spoilt child; I`m a spoilt adult who has never actually been spoilt, and so where this utterly demanding selfishness comes from I have no idea: it certainly wasn`t from either of my parents or either of my grandparents. I can only assume, therefore, that it was hard wired into me in the womb - at some stage between developing toes and growing ears - and that insisting on being born one day early while my mum was cleaning the kitchen floor was just the first sign. To hell with what she wanted; I was ready, I had decided, and I was bored of waiting and that was enough.

Which is why, when I saw my friend yesterday, I made myself utterly unbearable yet again.

"It`s not working," I told her.
"What isn`t?"
"Exercise. It`s not working."
There was a pause.
"What do you mean it`s not working?"
"Well, I`m not much happier and calmer at all."
"Okay...."
"And look," I demanded, and showed her my arms. "They`re exactly the same as they were. They`re no stronger at all." I wobbled them to prove it. "And my legs, they`re still pathetic. Look at them."
My friend dutifully looked at them, and there was another pause.
"It`s been three days," she said eventually.
"Yes, but I`ve done exercise every single day."
"For three days."
"But something should be happening, shouldn`t it? I mean, shouldn`t I be feeling calmer and stronger and fitter by now?"
"In three days?"
"Three days is a long time!" I exclaimed, actually - and I`m ashamed to say this - meaning it with all of my heart. "Three days is ages!"
"Three days is only three days, Hols. People can go without water for longer than that and barely feel thirsty."
But I want to be happy and fit and calm now, I almost cried, and then managed to stop myself.
"I should keep going, then?" I asked her eventually.
"Yes."
"And it will work?"
"Yes."
"How long do I need to keep going for?"
"Take it three days at a time, Holly. But I think the answer is forever."

If people can be born with a fatal flaw, then impatience is mine. It undoes every good thing I try and do; it undermines everything in me that is worthwhile. I am bad at cooking because I am impatient -  turning up the heat too high, wandering off to do something else half-way through - and I am bad at writing a novel because I want it to be finished now. I am bad at being tidy because I am constantly moving on to the next thing and too impatient to clean up behind me; I am bad at maintaining or building friendships because I want intimacy and closeness straight away; I have destroyed countless serious and budding relationships because of an inability to let things be, and I broke my own heart this year by not waiting when I should have, and for wanting everything immediately. And - just to really condemn my own happiness - I have utterly broken any chance of a reconcilliation - in friendship or anything more - by demanding that reconcilliation now, instead of giving it time and waiting with the patience and attitude of an adult, instead of a small, spoilt baby.

Every single day I ruin the present by impatiently lusting after the future: by never, ever knowing how to wait. And - in my demand to live life now - I`m not living it at all. All I`m really doing is twirling around in panicked circles, destroying everything and everyone around me and creating a demanding, selfish hole that my life falls into.

This morning, I got up early before work and I went for a run. When I got back, I felt exactly the same, but more out of breath; my legs were still weak, my arms were still squidgy, and my heart was still tired. But I have to try to remember that good things come to those who wait; and if I do not learn how to, any bad that comes to me is entirely of my own doing.

If I have to learn one lesson, now - and learn how to carry it with me at all times - it is that of patience. Because if there is one virtue I desperately need and do not have, it is that one.