Waiting. . .

Waiting for her to fall asleep, waiting for her to finish nursing, waiting to eat dinner, waiting for her to fall asleep the second time, waiting all the time.  My daughter is teaching me a lesson in patience that is long overdue for me.  So overdue in fact that I have never even had the patience for hand dryers in the public bathroom.


But now I have to be patient all the time.  I have to put her needs above my need for things to be constantly changing and for the inevitable shake-up that I want to give my life whenever I get itchy.

And in this I think i will find something.  I keep hearing Regina Spektor’s lyrics: "taking steps is easy, standing still is hard”.
And right now I feel a lot of standing still and the need to finish things.  My paintings, my children’s book, my most recent ambitious ideas for my business.  

In this refrain from shaking it up and trying something totally different, I am having to sit with my discomfort, and be patient while it washes over me.  And I don’t like this.
It is sitting with the feeling that I hate my paintings, that I am a fraud, that I have no business calling myself an artist.  It is staying when I want to run away.  And it is hard.

But my daughter is helping me learn to be okay with waiting one long night at a time. And I know I will thank her for it.