Give yourself time
Ease up on yourself, okay?
I’m not the most patient person in the world. Enjoying the scenic route or, you know, straying from the plan in any way whatsoever is not a skill of mine. When people tell me to, “Be spontaneous!” my hands get clammy and my throat closes up. That’s an exaggeration, but people don’t really bother trying to tell me that, so who knows? Maybe it’s true.
For me, being truly patient is like meditating. I know I should do it more often. But it’s so hard. It’s much easier to just keep running through a to-do list over and over in my head. That’s basically the same thing, right?
I know. It’s not. My lack of patience is clearly a character flaw. I also know I’m not alone in this. As this bummer of an article in Fast Company so kindly points out, millennial women are burning the f out. TLDR: we tend to burn the candle at both ends.
It’s easy to spot in others. My first few years in the ad industry was a blur of brunches and happy hours with stressed out friends who couldn’t tell if they were overdoing it or never doing enough. To which I’d remind them, things take time, don’t be so hard on yourself, things don’t happen overnight. But then I’d go home and make sure my LinkedIn was up-to-date and add some things to my portfolio and listen to a “Learn Italian” CD and try to cook as well as my parents and contemplate the rate at which we were depleting the earth’s resources and and and. Without realizing it, I put this pressure on myself to do things faster. I thought if I worked harder, I could reach my goals sooner.
It didn’t occur to me that being in a constant, low-grade rush isn’t a great way to live. Until this year.
This year, I finally learned how to be patient. And based on how that’s going so far, I’m going to be learning for awhile.
The beginning of the end of my hurried lifestyle happened when I moved to Duluth from Minneapolis, MN with my husband and geriatric french bulldog. Duluth is a large-small town two and a half hours north of the Twin Cities. Because we’re cool, go-with-the-flow people, we decided four years in advance that we would move home to Duluth. For no real reason. Just to have a plan. See what I mean about lack of patience?
Knowing we’d one day leave Minneapolis, we made a concerted effort to do everything we could while we lived there. We rented an “alcove” apartment (a fancy word for “tiny”) so we could live in a nice building downtown. We tried to bike or walk everywhere. We became pros at cheap dates. We found some pretty amazing friends and held onto them tightly. We’d listen to our favorite bands at 7th Street Entry and spend Saturdays on patios. We pushed ourselves to be the best we could be at our jobs and our studies so that when it was time to move home, we could feel good about all the progress we made. And then, we overshot it.
In making the most of Minneapolis, we accidentally put down roots. Deep, sprawling veins that tugged at us the moment we started packing up our shoebox apartment.
It was easy to ignore it at first. There was so much in Duluth to be excited about. Family! Beer! Nature! We were moving home! We were going to become outdoorsy! We could give camping a try! (Nope.) Maybe we’ll start hiking all the time! (Eh…)
Eager to start the next adventure, we set a new series of deadlines. But this time, our goal was to adjust and fall in love with our new surroundings faster than anticipated.
We tried so hard to love our new city so fast, that we didn’t give ourselves the space to miss our old one. And boy, did we miss it.
When we finally noticed how we had tucked away those feelings with our bikes and summer clothes, our emotions hit like a gale-force wind.
As a very *sensitive* INFJ, this did not go well for me. Nine months after our move, we spent the entire drive on a return trip to Minneapolis feeling weird and gross and sad. And then we went to lunch feeling even weirder and ickier before we got to the bottom of it. We needed to ease up on ourselves. We needed to slow down and enjoy the transition.
Instead of dipping our toes into this new place, we had once again rushed ourselves. Make new friends, find new hobbies, get into new Duluthy bands and start new routines as quickly as possible. Right away, not a moment to spare. We would love it immediately. We had to.
Except that’s not how it works. Friendships take time. Hobbies take practice. Bands take listening to, over and over until you know all the words by heart. And guess what? Sometimes you try something and decide you don’t like it. Sometimes folk music makes you sad and anxious and car sick all at the same time. But you sure can give it a good college try.
We needed to learn to be patient. And, we needed to acknowledge the Minneapolis-sized hole in our hearts.
When we finally gave ourselves the time and space to miss Minneapolis and adjust to this new place, we were able to love Duluth even more for what it is.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Wah, wah. You moved to a new city, in fact you moved home, and you felt a little sad. Try having something actually bad happen to you.
And sure, you’re right! Of all the bad things that can happen to a person, this is right up there with an obnoxious hangnail. But I know a lot of people who are like me. People who have a built-in need to be ahead of schedule, or who are moving to new cities or who are just emotional beings in general.
And if that’s you, I just want to say: slow down, you animal. Let yourself feel the feelings; good or bad. Give yourself some time. Maybe put the to-do’s and deadlines on hold for a minute and see if you like it.
If you move, it’s okay to acknowledge that your new place isn’t the same as your old place. But how wonderful is it to have something worth missing at all?
This transition has helped me learn some important lessons.
- Doing new things isn’t easy. Apparently, you can fall down even when you’re skiing on flat ground. Who knew?
- Moving isn’t easy. Like, physically, but also emotionally. Change doesn’t come naturally to me. Unearthing your roots and growing new ones takes time.
- Being patient is especially hard. Even when someone has told you a bajillion times. (Sorry, parents.) Sometimes you need to feel the relief that patience offers before you can understand why it’s important.
So if you’re moving jobs or cities or trying something else, try what I didn’t at first. Give yourself time. You deserve it.
