Thanks for the conversation, dear.

I like to do things fast.  I don’t have time to be slow, I go fast.  FAST!  I like to over-book my days so that I’m rushing from place to place with no time to think or do anything that’s not on the schedule.  If something happens to take too long, like traffic, then I’m late to my next appointment which tends to domino into each subsequent appointment so that my day is tense and kind of awful.  The next day, I do it again.

So this was my life for years; being self-employed and panicky about it, I was in a rush having to be everywhere always.  And now I’m in less of a rush, but I’ve formed a habit of quickness.  Irony of ironies, I am now dating a man whom I consider to be the slowest human being on earth.  This of course, is not a fact…but if I have to wait for him to get ready for us to go out my whole body will tense as I silently shout “hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”.  He is methodical.  He is intentional.  He does not multi-task and he does not cut corners.  The good part is, pretty much everything he does is done better than me, like when we were painting his living room and he insisted on sanding and priming and blah blah blah.  It took forever!  I whined a lot.  He told me I could take a break if I wanted.  I was shamed and kept working.  The living room now looks beautiful, and wouldn’t look half as good if I’d done it my way; screw sanding, primer optional.  I can appreciate his attention to detail and his calm.  Mostly.

Still, this whole “slowing down” thing is a huge challenge for me.  This morning I was at starbucks waiting to get to the condiment station to put cream in my coffee, and an old man was standing in my way talking to a barrista about something that I thought wasn’t worth me waiting for.  I felt my pulse quicken, the little annoyance start to build in my brain.  I was starting to get to the silent swearing stage when he said to her “Well!  Thanks for the conversation, dear!” and moved aside.  I paused.  I thought.  Maybe I have to slow down because getting to work early is less important that this man having a conversation with a stranger.  And maybe I’m not more important than him because I’m busier.  Maybe I’m just busier and that’s my life to deal with, not everyone else’s job to get out of my way.  Maybe I’m dating someone who’s going to remind me of that every day.  Maybe I like that 🙂

Thanks for the read, dear.