Patience

Is patience ever a name? Like a kids first name.. like Constance, or Grace, or Hope---ok Hope is always the middle name. It seems like patience falls in line with all those other not-actual-name words and classy definitions enough that people would start naming their offspring after it. Maybe not? I don't know.

 Exercising my patience muscles for an hour while trying to hitchhike in Puerto Natales, Chile

I've always envisioned myself pretty patient, but then I started to get to know myself better and found that it really depends on the situation and the circumstances. I probably have a fairly typical patience threshold in general but I realized something about patience recently. You're always practicing having it. Well, those of us that believe we are trying to improve ourselves are always practicing it. Its never polite to have an outburst because you're done waiting around for some seemingly useless cause, but you try and try to be patient and nice because that is how you keep friends and not alienate people around you, right? I don't know.

I'm having trouble being patient with my running. I just want to be fit ("fit" is definitely a completely relative term)again. I am finding myself wishing the same thing everyone wishes for, whether secretly or out loud---to be fit without having to wait around through all the building phases of hard-work and sacrifices and time gone by.
I enjoy running, so even though I'm not as graceful as I'd like to be yet, it's okay. It's not like I am training to be a champion weight lifter, I don't think that would be fun, so it would be a huge bummer to be doing that all the time. I am happy to be healthy and running, and I try to exude gratitude for my health and ability to do what I love as much as I do. But this phase of practicing patience is HARD! It's not AS fun as training while you're already pretty fit. The difference is like fine tuning your guitar after a little strumming and before you go out on stage Versus hurriedly putting strings on your guitar while walking out on stage only to have to delay the show and face the shining lights while you try and get the strings to at least look correct, despite what they may sound like(the show must go on!).

I may be exaggerating. How can I complain about being perfectly healthy and training with no major necessity to be in really-good-shape for another 10 weeks? Not to mention my humongous wealth of help I have along the way from my family, friends, bosses, co-workers, teammates and competitors alike. My personal lesson about patience morphed into a miniature epiphany that is more about gratitude, thanks, and personal satisfaction.

I don't think I have anything cooler sounding to say than that last bit so please just pretend this sentence isn't here and reread the little section above before you exit out of the page. Thanks :)