Impatiently Living

Okay, I survived another year with little or no aging. At least in the eye of this beholder. I admit I may be getting a tad far-sighted. But I don’t need those reading glasses just yet! Besides, if the writing on the back of my senility pills is too small to see, I have two adult children with perfectly good vision to read it for me. They live here for free. It’s the least they can do. The very least.

Getting closer to the big 5-0 has made me cognizant that my patience is getting shorter and shorter in certain areas. That must be surprising to those of you who look up to me as the patron saint of patience, but things change. You’d think with age would come some kind of immunity to such things. Or at least wisdom would override emotion. But when someone drives fifteen miles an hour under the speed limit in front of me, I realize my last ounce of patience is exhausting out my ears in a billow of angry smoke like a cartoon character. It’s not that I have anywhere more important to go than the idiot in the tiny car that runs on sunshine and the color green, but could we get there before my arteries harden?!

Another thing that causes me tremendous impatience is a movie filmed so quietly that only dogs and the Bionic woman can hear the dialogue. What is the director thinking? If the story is barely audible does it make it more literary? I have to admit that in my younger years I would have sat watching to the end, my ears straining to hear, my brow furrowed with confusion, but no more. I turn it on and if my dogs flip their ears up to hear better, off it goes back to Netflix without regret.

You know that I love books. All kinds of books. Until recently, I had never started a book I didn’t finish. It didn’t matter how boring it was. I took pride in the fact that I read it from cover to cover. This past year I stopped reading TWO different books that I just ran out of patience with. I closed their pages and never looked back. I couldn’t see wasting my free time reading something I had absolutely no interest in. In the dark of night I have had a twinge of guilt over it, but it quickly passes.

I know patience is a virtue and all that. I know if I can’t wait for water to boil there will be no pasta. And I know Mr Clean doesn’t do the floors for you if you open the bottle and leave it out in the kitchen. Which is a real shame, cause I've always wanted a Jeanie in a bottle.

Maybe this getting older just makes me realize I don't have time to waste. But the day my patience wears thin with the microwave--I’ll know I’ve gone too far.