We are an impatient culture, and our patience is rapidly dwindling.
If the email doesn’t arrive within seconds, we wonder what went wrong.
If the Amazon package is “delayed”, we check our orders.
If the food isn’t delivered within an hour, we complain.
We don’t like lines.
We don’t like to wait.
Some of this is understandable; when we expect a certain efficiency, impatience is sure to follow when the expectation isn’t met.
And yet, I can’t help but think about my grandparents’ generation, where letters took hours to compose and weeks to arrive, where food was grown then harvested then cooked, where they knew that even love was a slow-growing fruit that could take decades to ripen.
The Beauty of Home
I was outside one morning and I noticed, as I always do, the red rose bush that is flourishing next to our front gate. It makes me endlessly happy every time I see it, but this time I paused to ponder that one of the things I love best about it is that it blooms all summer into autumn. This initiated a cascade of thoughts:
It’s taken us a long time to understand which plants do best in Colorado and in this house. We’ve lived here for 16 years and this is the first year that the gardens don’t feel overwhelming. We didn’t have the time to devote to our yard when our kids were younger. Time is elongating as our kids are growing up (one already grown). My clients with young children are in the phase of life where there’s never enough time or space. That shifts, but those years can be so challenging. It takes time to grow into a house. It takes time to grow into a life.
It takes time to grow into a house.
If younger me had known this, I would have had more patience with the challenges of the householding years. I would have been able to trust that we would get to the gardens, but we couldn’t now, and hopefully that would have helped me relax into the beautiful chaos of having young children amidst the perpetual mess.
The Language of Birds
Similarly, I haven’t had the time or inner spaciousness to know – to really know – the animal life around us. We are blessed to be surrounded by several varieties of birds, but I haven’t had the time to understand their calls and name them by species. (And when I say “we are blessed”, I mean we all blessed, because common birds are everywhere.) I have the time now. Time has shifted over these last few years, opening up places in me that can then open to the more subtle languages in my surroundings.
Sixteen years and I never knew their calls and names.
I heard, but I didn’t listen. Then I listened, but I didn’t know. Now I know.
I know their names. I’m learning their calls. (If you’re curious about bird language, this is an amazing resource.)
There’s an entire world of choral communication happening just above our heads and most of us ignore it. And then we wonder why we feel alone in this world.
It takes time to learn the language of birds.
The Blessing of Time in Marriage
As I’ve shared often, it takes time to find ease in a marriage.
It takes time to iron out the wrinkles, to work through trauma collisions (that can take years, if not decades), to soften the hard spots so that you let each other in, to shrink fear and grow love.
In our ageist and instant-gratification culture, we expect all good things to happen now. Right now. We have a hard time trusting that some goodness can only happen with time. We don’t trust the wisdom that can only arrive in the increased spaciousness of the second half of life because that’s not what the culture promotes.
The highly sensitive person often fears the passage of time, but we would likely fear it less if we understood that many beautiful things can only arise with time.
Thank you, Sheryl. A timely message! ❤️ I have enjoyed using the Merlin bird app in recent years. You may like it as well.
Yes, Victoria just told me about the Merlin app and I’m loving it!
I connected with this so much. Thank you Sheryl ❤️
I’m so glad, Meg. ❤️
I needed this, as my partner and I are struggling with trauma collisions and it triggers my Relationship Anxiety so badly!! So helpful to have a reminder that having struggles is NORMAL and that we’re building something that takes a long time. Patience is so tough with the fear voice, but such a balm to remember it’s all ok ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I’m glad it arrived at the right time, Sophia, and brought some comfort. ❤️❤️❤️
Timely as ever. Thank you. ❤️
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Such a beautiful reminder. Thank you!
My lovely, highly sensitive daughter often comments on the birds (and all nature) in our yard, naming each bird (not the species but a chosen monicker) and recognizing their call as they chirp away when she wakes and drifts off to bed. It’s a great reminder to me to slow down — she will get to independence in her own time, to appreciate the struggles as part of the maturation process, and to relax into the knowing that all beautiful things take time.
How beautiful that she has named the birds! When we play close enough attention, we can start to differentiate one bird from another and truly get to know the creatures with whom we share a home. It sounds like she’s already doing this :).
Im married 43 years (yikes!) and my children are now 38 and 35 year old adults. You are so very wise knowing as you already do that there is a wisdom and ease that comes with the second half of our lives. It was a heart wrenching and yet freeing time when my kids truly left the nest . There was a sense of pride and joy in watching them carve out their own versions of a good life . I however, was left adrift for quite a while, trying just to find my own direction in life and my marriage. With time and coaching/therapy , I found the patience and compassion to sort myself out . As often happens, change in one person can ripple out to a partner and now over time my marriage has grown too. Thank you Sheryl, for your always beautiful and heartfelt writing. Your podcast with Victoria is also a balm for all of us empathic/sensitive souls!
How beautiful to hear about your journey, Mary, and that you found your way to more deeply knowing yourself in the second half of life. That’s one of the tasks! And I’m so glad that you enjoy the podcast 🥰.
This is such a wonderful message, Sheryl. I am 23 and yet I am yearning for the simplicity and slowed down pace that you describe in this post. As much as I am grateful for the efficiency and ease offered by the advancements of society, I long to have the time to grow my own food, to tend to a garden, to create art. The paradox of choice in our culture is overwhelming, sometimes paralyzing. This fast-paced lifestyle really does promote entitlement to instant gratification and undoing this mindset is hard work. As per usual, your intuition with what is needed to be heard by the community is on point. At present the trauma collisions are at the forefront of my 7 month relationship and all my fear voices tell me to run, yet I come back to what you said in one of the course articles about there being times in which we will want to jump ship, yet those times usually are the on the precipice of the most profound growth and change if we choose to fight and be patient. This post emphatically reiterates this message to stay, that time and patience are our best friends. Thank you for this reminder <3
This is very beautifully expressed, Kayla. Thank you for sharing.
“Mental health doesn’t know the variable of time. It takes the time it takes” – Alessandra Cavalli, psychoanalyst
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This post is perfect timing. The past few years have been a real struggle in my 15 year relationship especially after welcoming our four year old, time and patience are the key themes which are the most challenging. We have had so many ruptures and trauma collisions in this time and both are working through these in our own ways. Today is my 45th birthday and we have a rare day together. Thank you for reminding me about the patience needed to make our garden bloom again. Right now it feels fallow but that doesn’t mean new roots and shoots are not forming and will continue to blossom. I have thought about jumping ship many times when things have been hard. This wise post reminds me about the power of riding through the storm together.
Happy birthday, Sara :). Those early years with kids are SO HARD, and everyone thinks about jumping ship. But those who stay the course and do their inner work and couple work are richly rewarded in later years.
Beautiful reminder to slow down and really tune in to ourselves and our world around us with lots of compassion. It feels like this message is even more important than ever.
Thank you.
Thank you, Emma. I agree: we’re all longing to slow down and bring compassion to ourselves and the world.
Love this…I am retired from my full time work and only now have been caring more for my home and garden and listening to the birds. By the way, Merlin is a great and fun phone/ipad app for birds! It identifies birds around you that it hears as you record them while walking or hanging out somewhere. As it “hears” a bird, the name of the bird pops up on your screen. Thanks for your beautiful teacings, Sheryl.
Yes, Victoria just told me about Merlin and I’m LOVING it!