I kept my patience the other day. It was one of the hardest things for me to do, seeing as it was wrapped up in a long standing fear. It had everything to do with how I deal with emotions, how I have evolved over time when interacting with others and their emotions where I am concerned, and with where I am looking to go.
A good friend and I went on a trip together. I should probably say that this person and I dated about 14 years ago or so. It was for only a year, and it ended poorly. It was the last real relationship I've had since. A string of failed relationships over a period of four years (including the daughter' s mother and this one) led me to a very dark place; a place I had no idea what to do. It was a puzzle my 33 year old self could not unravel until I came to the conclusion I was the problem and acted to change those things that were causing the failures on my end.
I tried to date at first. There were A few people over the years I was pretty interested in, and I even went on a few dates which inevitably ended with with me freezing up, screwing up a first date, or just plain being paralyzed in fear. As a result, I chose to stop dating.
A conscious decision to eschew romantic entanglements with no religious proscription is an odd thing to most people. It leads to some very interesting assumptions, and ones I did not dissuade people from having since they conveniently fit the lifestyle I was choosing.
The labels weren't entirely accurate. The entire time I was not aromantic or asexual, although i woukd use those labels at time for convenience in explaining to others where I was in my romantic life. I was not avoidant or any other myriad things people thought. I consciously chose not to date until I could do so without the paralyzing fear.
That time has come. Although the fear is there and the terror is real, I am making a choice. I am choosing to face that fear in the desire to feel and explore those feelings.
A couple months ago, the aforementioned friend and I went to a movie together. During the movie we cuddled. This was not out of character. It was something we had done before as friends, and not entirely unexpected, but this time it sparked old feelings more strongly than I had felt in years.
See, this person and I? Other than about 2 years immediately after the relationship have been good friends. We have dined together, gone camping together, lamented life together... hell, I held her hand at the hospital before she went in for surgery. Point is we've never lost that friendship.
Over those same years we would sometimes try to figure out our feelings, always concluding the past was best left there. It was the logical decision. It was the safe decision, it was the patient decision.
But it is no longer the time for that patience. Now the patience comes in letting myself feel and in not overanalyzing things or pushing for explanations or digging into the why of a purely emotional response in someone else. Let's see where this goes.
I lost my patience last night.
Things had gotten out of control on the household front. Despite weeks of admonishment of my co-habitants to do their portion of the homework and to do the chores and errands they needed to complete in order for the house to be stable and clean, they did not make apparent progress at a good rate.
I finally made my displeasure known.
That's not always a bad thing, in fact unless you make your displeasure known, the person can't know they are causing any amount of discomfort. From family to partners to coworkers to presidents and kings, unless they know what they are doing is in any way incorrect, they will just keep doing it.
In this case, I made an error in keeping my patience as long as I did. It led to raised voices and anger. I kept my patience too long and did not make
Funny thing, patience.
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