Running A Little Slower

     I am really busy. My life is crazy. Between work and my kids there is no time for dilly-dallying at all. As a result, I am always in a rush. It is a big problem for a New Yorker living in LA where no one else is ever in a rush. It always baffles me how relaxed everyone here is and why no one else has anywhere to go. Why is it that I am the only person in this town who bags her own groceries or honks in carpool line. It is truly mind boggling.

     Of late, work has been particularly crazy, crazier than usual and so I have been in more of a perpetual rush than usual, if that is even humanly possible. Thank g-d for the holidays though when everything and everyone basically shuts down in the US. My company has sort of closed for the two week period and as a result, although I am working, I find myself a lot less frantically and frenetically paced. Which is why I had an incredibly defining moment as Yonatans mother this week.

     I often joke that G-d gave me this life that requires so much patience but sadly forgot to give me the actual patience when  creating me. Long before I was a mother I was already quite impatient. No one would ever call patience one of my virtues, least of all my husband (or my mother). The problem is, that doing anything with my eldest requires buckets and buckets of it. He marches to the beat of his own drummer always. He could care less that I am always in a rush. For this reason, I rarely take him with me to do any errands. There is almost never a "we are just going to run in and out with him". This is the biggest reason that if you drive down my block you will often see me secretly sneaking out of my house so that I can accomplish something quickly, with out my slow poke tag along.

     This week though things are different. I am in less of a rush. It is the holidays and things are quiet. I termed christmas eve (one of only two days of the year that I have both child care and vacation) the "it's all about Miriam day" and lived it up to its fullest. I saw two movies and got a massage.  I even managed to take a shower without a single soul screaming at me thru the closed bathroom door, AMAZING. A must be repeated moment. Tuesday was perfect, I really was free to do my own thing until 3:30 pm and man did I milk it.

     The joy of Tuesday though was nothing compared to the amazement of 30 minutes on Wednesday morning spent with Yonatan. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I wasn't in a rush. I dropped the younger kids at school and Yonatan joined along for the ride. He asked if he could come with me to the supermarket and I actually said yes, something that would usually be a fate worse than death for me considering the long list of things I needed from there. But as I said, I wasn't in a rush. Let me tell you what a difference not  being in a rush makes. We had a blast! I can't remember the last time I laughed so much or had such a great time at the supermarket. We  raced with the cart, we laughed, he careened around the store making u-turns and giggling out loud. It was fun. The most dreaded of outings turned out to be better than an all me all the time day. All I had to do was simply slow down. Slow down and allow myself time to enjoy the experience of watching him be free to have fun. I didn't yell even once, I didn't threaten him that if he didn't listen I would have to take away his mail, all I did was sit back and enjoy my son for who he is and embrace it. And it was perfect.

    If only I could  be in a little less of a rush a little more often in my life. Sadly, I think we all know that is highly unlikely given my personality (and life) and so, I will have to take the moments I can get.