Maybe Patience Isn’t the Virtue They Say It Is

Patience has always been an acquaintance of mine, but never a friend. He’s not someone I invite to parties, not someone I get drinks with after work. When he’s not around, I curse him. Mutter under my breath. Sometimes an accomplice chimes in with a “and his fucking mother,” because that just feels right.

But Patience and I? We have history.

I grew up poor in the ’80s. That meant mowing lawns, bailing hay, taking whatever sweaty, backbreaking job a farmer was willing to throw at a kid with a work ethic. Getting a dual-cassette player wasn’t a whim — it was a one-year plan for twelve-year-old me. I waited, I worked, I saved. And when the day finally came, I walked into the bank like a tiny CEO, withdrew my cash, and asked my dad for a ride to the store.

I can do patience. I just fucking hate it.

When something is within my control, I move fast. That’s why some of my decisions look impulsive from the outside. People think I wake up and suddenly buy a motorcycle or suddenly make a career shift. No — I’ve usually been chewing on that decision for six months to a year.

I think. A lot. I overthink. Quietly.

I don’t drag my friends through the obsession spiral because most people don’t want to live inside my head with me. They don’t want to hear the constant deliberations, the microscopic considerations that eventually coalesce into a major decision.

Take motorcycles. Choosing my first bike was a three-year internal debate. But to my friends, it looked like I woke up one day and impulsively bought one. If you Google “best first motorcycle”, you’ll drown in shitty advice written by people who treat new riders like fragile glass figurines. Everything underpowered, undersized, made for a different body and a different rider.

Can you imagine my 6'1", 225-pound self crammed onto a Honda Shadow? Fuck that.

A 500cc engine trying to pull me around? Laughable by day three.

So no, I didn’t buy the usual starter bike. I bought an Indian Scout 1250. Too small for me physically, sure, but I never once complained about lack of power — that thing was a fucking rocket. Eventually, though, I needed more room, which led me to Harley and the Road King Special: the first bike that fit me like a goddamn exhale.

I’ll get another one. Just not until I financially recover from this bullshit.

Which brings me to today — the day after learning that I won’t be using my left foot for another six fucking weeks. The pins came out yesterday, and now everything aches: the bones, the holes the pins left behind, the soft tissue that’s been forcefully reorganized against its will.

I’d stopped taking pain meds. Today, I caved. Ibuprofen, acetaminophen. It’ll heal, but it hurts.

I should be able to put weight on my left wrist soon, maybe start rebuilding muscle in my upper body. Maybe that will reduce the exhaustion that’s been dragging me into 12-hour sleeps. Maybe that will make the walker a real possibility. Maybe I can scoot up my stairs backwards like some feral acrobat.

Or maybe — and this is the part I fucking hate — maybe I’m not going home until January 12.

My goal is to return to work on January 18, because disability runs out and rent is still a thing. But it goes deeper than money. I need to get back to work for my own sanity. I had worlds to change. I still do.

Can’t do that from a borrowed recliner.

Hear that? That faint scratching sound? That’s Impatience clawing at the door.

Because even if my hand heals… I still might not be able to get into my own goddamn truck. And until I can do that, I can’t get to work. I can’t get home. I can’t get back to myself.

People keep telling me to use this time to work on my novels, but writing — real writing — I prefer to do in my own space, with my own rituals. Living in someone else’s house, even someone I love deeply like Brittney, means my preferences aren’t top priority. And I live alone for a reason: I like being the queen of my own fucking castle.

And so the quest for normalcy continues. Temporarily delayed. Annoyingly paused. Held hostage by Patience, that old bastard acquaintance I never wanted as a friend.

Maybe one day we’ll get along. But today? Today, he can still go fuck himself.