Lessons In Patience; Or, How I Learned To Surrender At The Post Office

As soon as I put their leashes on, I started to doubt this idea. There was no way they'd make it the whole way, there was no way I could carry the mail and navigate my criss-crossing, zooming pups at the same time, and it was just dumb.

All of those negative thoughts meant one thing: I absolutely had to do it.

We had a typical start with Henry trying to partake in a sprinting competition that no one else knew was going on, and Layla trying to (literally) smell all the flowers along the journey of life, and me looking like I was about to be drawn and quartered the old fashioned way (is there a new way? not sure why I included old fashioned there..) with my left arm pulling as far as it can go to the left and the right arm pulling as far as it can go to the right, and the quiet whisper of the word 'help' escaping from my lips.

We had finally made it around the corner and I was sighing as we waited for Layla to fully sniff this particular blade of grass, when I turned to Henry and said, "Your sister sure does teach us patience, doesn't she?"

And that's when it hit me. She absolutely does. And I absolutely need it. And it's absolutely beautifully timed.

I like to believe I'm in control of my day, my life, and how things go. And I'm so not. Spoiler alert: neither are you! I can hear the sound of so many people clicking out of this blog post at this very moment, but it's true. I'm sorry, because I know how much you want to believe you are. Probably at least half as much as my control freak self wants to believe it.

But you know what's even more delicious than being that person who is totally in control? The person who is in full surrender. That is some yummy, sexy, powerful shit.

Our walk to the post office took much longer than it would have if I went alone, and I had to take deep breaths of patience several times. We don't learn how to surrender in one quick moment, it's something to keep practicing. I was convinced it must have been at least an hour or two by the time we got to the center of town, but the large clock told me it had only been about twenty minutes. Isn't it fascinating how freaking long everything feels when we just want to get there now now now? Don't we decide just exactly how long something should take and if it's any longer (or just feels it) we're stomping our feet in frustration. When really, in the grand scheme of things, we're just barely into the adventure, with everything carefully and thoughtfully planned out for us ahead of time.

When we made it to the post office, and I popped those letters into the mailbox, I pretty much pumped my arms into the air and cheered, and announced that 'we made it, you guys, we made it!', with the exhaustion and pride that one might attribute to, say, someone who had just journeyed across the ocean on a raft. And you better believe I hope some passersby heard me and questioned my sanity. Cause that's always the true sign that I'm doing something right.

Think of something that you think is going to be unnecessarily hard to do, and do that thing. Prove to yourself you can do it. Think of something that you're desperately waiting on and wanting to happen now and allow yourself to surrender to the fact that it's already decided on when and how and if it will come to fruition. Show yourself you can surrender.

And then throw your arms up into the air and cheer for yourself a little bit. Preferably in public.