I have always had an enormous amount of patience. Astrologically, that’s an anomaly because I’m an Aries, and Aries are noted for being the most impatient of all the signs. I suppose my natal chart does offer a lot of explanations for my patience, but it’s too long and involved an explanation to go into here in my personal journal. That, and it is boring.
The first memories I have of being patient or “waiting” are these memories of being in the count-out room [also where they stored the cigarettes] of the grocery market where my mother worked. I suppose there were times when she didn’t have a babysitter and I had to go to work with her. I have no idea where my brother was; perhaps she could find a sitter for him because he was an infant. Perhaps I was a difficult child to sit for.. I don’t know, and it’s not important today as I write.
Anyway I would sit in this room and “wait” until she was done. I must have been 4. I remember being able to “help” the other Checkers count out their tills. It made the time go by. But I never left that room except to take a bio break, and that was with one of the other Checkers.
I had no toys or coloring book. Again, I don’t know why. But I remember feeling this kind of restlessness in me, and also the need to push that down so I could “sit still”. In its place, I’d bring up some kind of “waiting” mode. I’d not think about time. That’s the way I learned how to “wait”. I’ d just not think about time. I’d think about other things.
When someone came in, I’d pay attention to him or her, and ask if I could help. I guess they all knew me, although I don’t remember if they actually did. All I remember is that they’d give me the ones to count. Funny, I still “face” money the way they taught me. Habit I suppose.
I made it a little rule not to ask if my mom was done yet, because that would mean I’d have to face “time”. And I somehow innately knew that patience and “waiting” depends entirely on not thinking about time or its passage.
I remember doing the same thing when I was in Foster Care. I think I have an entry here somewhere about ‘waiting’ for my Father on the porch when I was in Foster Care. Except that waiting added a new element to the equation. Sometimes, no one ever came to end ‘the waiting’.
I was five then.
Once, when I was living with my mother again, I began going to Church every Sunday regular as clockwork. My mom would take me, and promise to pick me up on time, but most of the time she went back home and fell asleep. Mind you she worked 50 hours a week and her weariness was genuine, so I understood. The first couple of times she failed to pick me up, I waited for like 3 hours and then walked home. As time went on, I cut the time of “waiting” to two hours, and then one hour, and then one Sunday I just accepted an offer home from a church go-er.
As chance would have it, that was the time my mother showed up to pick me up on time. When she got home, she was very angry because she was so worried about where I was. I got a good beating over that.
I never accepted an offer for a ride home again.
And I waited the full 3 hours before I walked home–just to make sure. I even took the long way, so she could see me if she drove by.
I could tell you all about other experiences that led me to become a patient person, but hopefully you get the point. I became patient, because I had no choice. A skill [btw] I treasure as an adult, but the learning of it was difficult as a child.
Lately I have been looking at the nature of how I wait, and a question came to mind.. “What am I really waiting for?”
When I was a little girl in the Check Out room waiting for my mother, I guess I was waiting for her to take me home. And I must have been waiting for my Mother and Father to take me out of Foster Care and take me home. And when I waited for my mother after Church, I waited so she could take me home..
I guess the simple answer is I’ve been waiting to go home all my life.
The deeper truth, that is somehow both simple and complex is, … I’ve been waiting all my life for someone to rescue me from the “Waiting”.
