Patience

I am amazed how much patience I actually posses. I hear mothers-to-be express their fear of not being patient enough, as if they were talking about breast milk. Will I have enough? What will I do if I run out? How will I know if my baby’s getting the right amount? There is only one question that cannot be put in both groups. Breastfeeding mothers never worry if their lack breast milk will produce the next Jeffrey Dahmer.

Patience is endless, that is, if you can remember to breathe. When I discovered I had it, it made me feel like Cinderella after her Fairy God Mother turned her rags into a beautiful ball gown. I danced around, hugged myself, looked at my beautiful, patient face in the mirror and thought, “Oh, how lovely!”

Today, however, I forgot to inhale….deeply…..several times…to find my patience. I’m not sure it would have worked anyway. It was 9:00 at night, an hour and a half past bed time. My daughter, overtired and over-stimulated, was sobbing in her bed. She wailed over our dead dog she never knew. Sensitve? Maybe, but at 9:00 all I could think was the damn dog died 5 years ago. My daughter is 6.

In that moment, my patience was nowhere to be found. It is a good thing however, that I have discovered another “emotion” equally, if not more important, but barely talked about. This emotion too flows in abundance. The best part of this emotion is that you don’t have breathe in or tke as many times breaths to tap into it. You just need to let go.

I go in, pick up and hold my mourning, sobbing daughter. I make an attempt to hide my hysterical laughter.