It wasn’t all flowers and dinner parties. When I was a kid I spent a lot of time alone, and it wasn’t always fun. I want give this side of me some space to speak.

My childhood bedroom faced up the street. This perch gave me a prospect and a watchful eye over what was happening. When someone was coming to pick me up, I would ready myself early. I would sit on my perch and like a hawk, watch the lane in anticipation and readiness.

It was the most incredible physical display of impatient stillness. I wasn’t sitting playing with toys or reading a book while waiting. I was watching. I was on lookout. I needed to know the moment things were going to change; the moment that car was coming and I only had 1/10^th of a mile left until it happened.

I wasn’t just excited for what was coming, that was the strange part. I was afraid that if I didn’t see the car coming I would miss it. It was as if not being ready right away to go with whoever was coming meant they wouldn’t take me, or there would be a problem. So I waited, “patiently”.

Waiting wasn’t a feeling of hopefulness. It was a feeling of attention and urgency. It was a feeling of separation and longing for a moment of connection. It was like I didn’t trust that what was supposed to happen would happen.

It was in those moments alone, waiting, that I started to tell myself stories, or more correctly I started to script stories about what I was going to do. I needed to reframe my experience so that I would be okay waiting during these perceived eternities. I would retreat to my mind and craft a story, a plan. I never found the story that let me relax.

That moment, when I saw the right car coming down the road, I would be nervous, almost scared. That surge toward connection, that heart-led openness mashed up with a fear of loss. In these moments I wasn’t in my body. I was more worried about: who was I going to be? Where was I going to go? What was the right thing to say? Would I be accepted?

Fear was fueled by robust creativity. Crafted with such detail and vigor, I would create these terribly abstract scenarios that I needed to prepare myself for. And as a young boy, there was no way to deconstruct the abstraction. They were filed away as normative.

I want to tell that boy a new story or two. I want to talk with him about impatient moments. He needs to hear a story about the beauty of patience with presence. I want him to trust in that. He needs to give himself a break. Or as least let me lend a hand.