Making Peace With The Pause

One of the things I constantly worry about is how much I worry about things. I hope that makes sense. And this is because I’m always in a rush for things to happen. I always want things to happen a certain way for me and at a certain time. But if I remember very well, one thing the universe has been trying to hint at me is how important it is to be patient. Just that I haven’t been paying attention.

And I can date it back to when I was a kid. I remember how things weren't so smooth all the time, and there were times I had to wait for so long to get certain things even from my parents. Not because they didn't have it but because they weren't around. And funny enough, I never learned a thing from having to wait for them.

So somewhere last year, my friend travelled out of the country, and it was supposed to be for a number of weeks. This is someone I do everything with, so just imagine the toll it had on me. It was very hard, and so I resorted to counting the days until she returns. It was exactly like that counting of days prisoners do in their cells, except that mine was a mental one.

And so I waited and waited until the last week she was supposed to come. I was so excited only to hear that she wasn’t going to return that week. She was going to spend additional weeks, more like a whole two months. I thought it was a joke or a prank, but it wasn’t. I was so sad, and it made me anxious at some point.

And so there was this particular day that I was lamenting to my friend about everything, and she asked if there was something we could both do about the situation. Truly, there was nothing, so she told me that then there was no need to worry about it. All I had to do was to be patient and wait for her to come.

It was just a shallow conversation, but I ended up applying it in my life and it’s been so helpful. I ended up changing from worrying about things that were beyond my control to waiting things out. It was really hard but since it was a gradual process, I allowed myself to go through it for it to be effective.

If someone ever told me a time will come where I wouldn’t even worry about things like I used to, I wouldn’t really be bothered about things beyond my control, and I would have laughed because this has been something with me for years. And so I really love that even though it was a tiny change I added to my life, it has done so much for me.

Nobody told me how important it is to have patience. I had to go through a long route to know this at the end. It wasn’t a smooth ride, it wasn’t a comfortable one, and it sure wasn’t peaceful but it definitely was worth it. And I’m glad I embraced that change over the past years.