Patience Ate The Squeaky Wheel

Patience.

I thought about this word today. I was out an about and it occurred to me that sometimes patience is rewarded. Sometimes, when patient, we realize most how we fooled ourselves.

Patience is a virtue.

That used to be my favorite saying. I really thought that if I sat there long enough patiently waiting like a good girl, my efforts would somehow be noticed. Along with giving me gray hairs, age has taught me that notion is pure folly.

I've learned that the squeaky wheel does in fact get the oil. The brat does in fact garner attention. And the quiet ones do in fact sit by waiting for a momentary bit of focus.

I guess though, just like those wheels, if you spend all your time on the parts that squeak and draw immediate focus, you dont really see that the quiet wheel was quiet for a whole different reason altogether. It's quiet because its no longer there.

When reading this, some will think that the quiet one that drifts away is feeling left out or deprived. Maybe thats the case. Why shouldnt they though?

A slave comes to service to her Master not by birthright. This is a voluntary service born of a relationship. Thus, if the relationship is non-existent, what is really lost by fading away? I dont mean by having a short momentary time when your partner is busy taking care of life's callings. Rather, the long arduous abandonment of heart.

A slow, exceedingly painful, growing abandonment. Patience will not allow anyone to survive that.

So the next time you are so busy taking care of your own personal brand of chaos.. so busy putting out fires.. so busy with the important things that have your focus..

You may want to stop and ask yourself why its so quiet around you? Where is the one that was always there sitting patiently by waiting for your focus? Where did they go?

They evaporated in the desert that is your relationship.