Lessons... patience

I’m learning the lesson of patience.  It’s a slow process too – oddly ironic, I get it.  Understand – have yet to feel it emotionally but my logical mind is taking it all in.  The universe has a silly sense of humor of that I am continually reminded.

I’ve been seeing this lesson before me for the past few months.  I met a beautiful man with things starting out easily, simply and then he pulled back.  This caused me to push, bringing my past hurts into this new beginning.  I pushed too much, more pull and an endless cycle.  My patience evading me completely.  I realized though – a little too late - that pushing never gets me anywhere, my past also taught me this  – I caught myself and have pulled back myself now too.  A stalemate.  Stubbornness doubled.

I sit on this side now going about my life – happy as ever – and yet I still find my thoughts drifting back to him.  Wavering between waiting on this amazing man to see how things unfold – in the time and place that feels right for him and back to just giving up, not wanting to go down this road again, feeding him the attention he craves solely when his ego needs it -  to be hopeful only to have it all blow up anyway, patterns repeated.  A constant battle in my rational mind, my ego jumping front and center.  What I know though when I listen to my gut, my intuition, is that he is worth it, whatever it turns out to be and that I need to just have patience.  Be open to him, show him my heart and then let go.  Let go.  Patience personified.

It was only this morning though that I saw the humor of it all, the parallel paths towards this lesson in my life.  

I am a hardcore crossfitter, training 5 days a week and for the past two months have been limited by my dodgy right shoulder.  Bursitis holding me back.  No barbells, no overhead, no feeling strong and badass with heavy weights.  Stopped in my tracks.  The path to getting better is rest - slow and steady.  A full dose of patience required.  I have found other ways to maintain my training through this time, my legs getting stronger– full on punishment as I still train daily, a shifted focus.  And last night, a glimmer on the horizon – an empty barbell but still a barbell – using my right arm however lightly.  Slowly.  Unable to jump back into the full swing of things but a little step in the right direction.  It’s going to take time for me to get back to where I once was but I can see the good that will come from it – from this time in between - I’m willing to not push, to come back fully and stronger than ever when the time (and my shoulder) is right.  Patient persistence.

So you can understand my smile – even now, still, as I write this – on how the two are so inexplicably linked and yet the paths I’ve taken so different.  I can only wonder now if I’d taken the same approach to him as I had my shoulder if we’d be in a different place now – on the same side perhaps rather than in our separate corners, further apart than when we first connected.  Hard to say.  But as with my shoulder -  it took  me forever to just stop, step back and get things sorted out.  To let time and patience show the way to making it better.  So it is now with him.  I struggled to stop the pushing but have now seen the light, have opened up and stepped back and just have to trust that time and patience is the best course of action now.  The path to follow and time will tell.  The lesson coming twice this time, truly starting to sink in.  Two different puzzles, patience the answer for both.

I know my shoulder will heal in time and I trust my journey with him will be a long one.  Both will take the shape of whatever is meant to be.  Time and place.  A reason for everything.  I trust in the universe completely – always have - and it’s great to know it has such a solid sense of humor.