How to be Patient.. Right Now

Like the name Prudence, patience is a thing of the past. Instant gratification has shoved it aside. A blockheaded bully, prone to outburst and tantrum, who breathes and thinks through an open mouth.

Back in April of 2020, I was buckled into the passenger seat of Chad’s Jeep. Despite being on the freeway, the windows were open, and my hair whipped around as we barreled down the hill to Target.

“Babe, I’ve been thinking. What if we quit our jobs? Move into a tiny home, travel full time.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly amidst the noise of other cars; tires on asphalt and the whooshing wind.

Now, almost two years later, February of 2022 we’re still not on the road. We’ve completed a colossal to-do list severing anything keeping us tied down with methodical precision. I handed in my two-weeks notice at work two months ago, thinking that once I finished my last day, I’d have a week or two to pack up our newly completed home, and off we’d go!

“When are you guys hitting the road?” I heard, over and over.

“Two weeks,” I’d say assuredly. Always two weeks.

A few days ago I was coaxed back up the hill to the office, the possibility of seeing my old coworkers made even sweeter because I was told there would be pizza and chocolate cake. How anticlimactic, I thought, as I drove up Highway 50. I’d been gone a month already; left feeling somewhat smug under this triumphant headline:

“WOMAN ABANDONS OFFICE JOB! HEADS INTO UNKNOWN FOR TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE!”

…and now? I had no gripping story about how I confronted my mortality in a moonlit Walmart parking lot in South Dakota. I was not wearing a heavy turquoise necklace from Navajo Nation. The closest I had to a road story was the dead deer I saw on my commute there.

I am an unemployed woman living at her mom’s house, driving to her old office for free food. My coworkers would once again get to see me do what I’d always done at work: stuff my face.

Cue patience, stage left.

I am not a patient person. When I used to smoke, I remember sitting on the front stoop of my old midtown apartment thinking, “I love cigarettes…the instant gratification.” I’d take another drag, ignoring my life as it crumbled around me.

What I didn’t know at the time is how crippling instant gratification – this desire for immediate results – actually is.

Patience is built upon integrity, presence, and the ability to keep showing up even when shit gets tough. Patience allows you to draft plans, and then modify them as your vision clarifies.

Our penchant toward impulsivity isn’t always calculated. If Chad and I didn’t have the two years to prepare, we would have found ourselves in financial dire straits, likely stuck somewhere scary as the tiny house we planned on towing around the country, that’s right folks, we were initially going to head out in a tiny home, bottomed out on a narrow path in the Rocky Mountains.

Being forced to be patient as we put the final touches on the trailer is a relearning of how futile the “I’ll be happy when” mentality is, a constant reminder to find joy in life throughout the process.

Wherever you go, the internal stuff you carry comes with you. Learning ways to be OK (to the best of your ability) no matter what, is key.

This unrelenting quest for instant gratification is partially to blame for us eating poorly, not exercising, and spending money we may not have. It takes away our power as we constantly seek things outside ourselves to validate us and make us feel whole. The shortcuts we take to feel better right now are damaging, and prolong the inevitable. A band-aid for a bullet wound.

I am doing my best to remember this. I love sunny morning walks with Chad and Elvis, the luxury of long hot showers. I appreciate this time to learn; consistent connection to high powered internet.

My old patterns of impulse shopping, a superficial remedy for something far below the surface, are deeply ingrained. What did I do that day Chad and I decided we were going to make this monumental change? I spent $150 on throw pillows and a rug at Target.

And guess where they are now?

Goodwill.

The power of wanting something new, I should have known better.

I wish I had started exercising patience then, and not foolishly spent money on things I knew wouldn’t come with us when we finally pack up and leave, two weeks from today.