Of all the virtues patience sucks the big one. ..

Do you ever feel like like you are waiting, for something, for nothing, for anything?? For the moment when your world magically joins all the dots together and your future can begin... You know because nothing speaks of a grown up, mature future more than a dot-to-dot. Like some carefully connected kindergarten picture that shows at the core, a story beginning to form, even though it is child like and rather jagged at the edges..

Well I for one am calling it!!! Bullshit!! Who and when and why was it decided that to move comfortably and rationally forward in our lives one must not only be patient, but as a virtue it must be worn with that kind of selfless wounded soldier pride that makes much in romantic movies but makes me want to do that fingers down the throat, eye rolling, vomit action of pubescent boys who havn't a mature bone in their body.. It makes me sick, really sick, in a kind of self loathing yet 'I hate people' satirical fashion that people always seem to be waiting, me included, for some magic moment to arrive so they can 'begin'... Waiting for the right job, the right partner, to lose weight, to grow hair, to grow balls, to leave a partner, to marry a partner, to stand up for oneself, to have babies, to get married, to travel, to stop travelling, to be in the moment, to stop living in the past, to start living in the now, or my favourite waiting on someone else, arghhh, the list is never ending....


Patience is not my strongest point, on any level, but it is something I have been working on for years.. I'm not saying it doesn't help one cruise a little smoother through the bowels of life when you find yourself surrounded by all the shit that comes with adulthood, I am also not saying it doesn't make those life affirming, loving, living, sweet moments, that much more saccharine sweet and fluffy, but It surely isn't the answer to how to live your life??


Maybe I am over-zealous, rebellious, immature and incapable of making choices based on rationality. Maybe I like the feeling of freedom, of choice or jumping straight in.. Sometimes I jump straight from the frying pan into the fire but atleast I know I'm still alive! I don't always think I make the best choices but I like to think I go with my gut. Sometimes an intuitive choice is so far from patience that they could be on different sides of the universe, speaking languages neither understands and you choose the scary option, the one that might be wrong but how else will you know. I've done that a lot in my life, but I've lived to tell the tale, and I've managed to raise three pretty great kids who also seem to be thriving.. So who knows hey.... 


I wish sometimes we could all throw caution to the wind and just do what we want to do, but on a deeper level I also know, that choice, like much else is an umbrella term. It has so many variables attached to it that sometimes its hard to move in any direction. This truly is when patience is our greatest virtue, knowing of change, needing the change, wanting the change but being unable to step into it for fear of all the variables.. Being an adult is hard enough, no one ever said anything about virtues and variables and choices and dot-to-dots!!!!


I'm at a point where I don't want to wait anymore, I will, but I don't want too.. I don't think it's impatience of sorts, I more believe its damn well knowing what I do and don't deserve, and I know atleast two dozen other people who are waking up to this realisation as well.. Maybe it's my age, maybe I'm just an impatient bitch and a leopard never changes it's spots.. Is this post completely contradictory?? Of course it is, I'm a human being, we are all about angles and emotion and contradiction no matter what we want anyone to believe... 


I read a quote the other day by F.Scott Fitzgerald "Why don't you tell me that 'if the girl had been worth having she'd have waited for you'? No, sir, the girl really worth having won't wait for anybody.” and funnily enough it gave me some life perspective... I get him, Fitzy and I are buds, we have the same groove. We'd give each other the silent, across the room nod, if we could, and I believe this saying with every fibre of my being, about everything.. Nothing worth losing is worth waiting for, and we should grasp at it with both hands, because sometimes in the waiting process we forget not only what it is we are waiting for we also forget why or even worse, what we are waiting for morphs into something else or moves on and nothing ever comes of it anyway..


That is, almost everything.. Something's are worth waiting for, even a lifetime for, even without the knowledge that eventually the dots will join and your patience has paid off.. More often than not I say jump, but sometimes when there is something so worthy of time it transcends it, then it is time how to learn to dance.. And dance with you patience will, It may take rhythm you do not have and steps you have not acquired, but what is time when patience is your partner??

Just remember even Fred Astaire slipped on occasion, and that's ok too :)

Mama, Madly xox

Do you actually speak...

When you are talking to others do you actually speak? Do your words come from your heart? And when you talk are you saying anything that is actually valuable? To you, as in your truth, the words that you really want to say that are not modified or held back for fear of offending or being rejected by another person!??

I've been trying so hard recently to walk my talk, and vice versa... And one of the hardest parts of this journey I've realised are words.. Said words, thought words, undefined words, unspoken words, unheard words, the list goes on.. I think in my world my biggest problem and my biggest gift are words...

Single life has been really challenging for me, being sociable, active and communicative all come easily but I'm being drawn more and more to the realisation that everyone else has a set rule of thumb regarding what is and is not said.. What is acceptable and what is a faux pas beyond measure.. What people want to hear being at war with what you really WANT to say...There are so many supposed 'rules', and not only do I not understand them it's not a game I choose to play.. Not anymore anyway..

I've met a number of guys over so many months, one whom I thought I could be myself but only he was allowed to speak and as soon as I did I became unacceptable and quickly 'deleted' from his life.. Another who I thought my friend yet he didn't hear me at all and what he did hear he used to romance me for two seconds flat, but still I wasn't worthy enough to keep around and actually 'talk' with.. Another I couldn't actually converse with, because if I had an opinion it was taken personally and so I felt like I couldn't speak.. Another I knew I could tell anything too and vice versa and I think we could have happily cruised along together but life and his relationship circumstances made me (and my sometimes crappy self integrity that always steers me right but doesn't get me what I want) back away immediately before even going there... I met another who I offered up truths too and disinterest became quickly apparent, and whilst I know it was because of my words it made me sad they were misconstrued and misunderstood... I felt like I had grown a dragons head overnight...

I've realised I can no longer be mindfully in a relationship, be it romantic or otherwise, with someone whom I cannot completely be myself and talk my talk too.. I need to be able to speak.. I need a partner in crime who allows that, just as I would allow them.. I also need a partner I don't feel the need to speak to and he gets that, and we can just be.. Sometimes I can do (and need to get away with) stupid talk, I can act like an immature kid and laugh and carry on, or I can rant and rave about the most idiotic things and yet I know that the other one is listening, even if it's with a sparkle of amusement in their eyes and they think I'm a complete dick.. Above all in the moments that I really need too, I need to know that when I 'speak' I can really speak, that my words when spoken are absorbed, I don't need them to be agreed with, not adhered to, but I most definitely need them to be heard..  

I've decided from now on, I am going to speak.. I will say what I want, when I want, to whom I want and if that scares people away then I really don't want or need them in my life to begin with.. As the saying goes, "It has taken me over 20+ years to really learn to like myself, I don't have that kind of time trying to convince you to like me as well".. You either like someone or you don't.. I am no longer going to put on airs and graces in order to attract a friend nor a mate, the right friend or partner will be the one who looks at me without the airs and graces and still thinks the sun never shone as brightly when I wasn't in their life....

The biggest present you can give anyone is to be present.. And the biggest present you can give yourself?? It's surrounding yourself with people who when you speak, you can actually speak and they in return listen... 

Ciao xx

Mama, madly xox