Patience

Nothing – not one single thing – tests my patience more than waiting for stoplights when I’m late for an appointment.

Not my husband’s demands nor my boss’s questions nor my children’s moods.

My toes are tapping and my fingers are drumming. I feel like I’m going to crawl up out of my body and shake my fists at the glaring red ball of light staring back at me.

Taunting me.

Trying me.

Nothing lasts this long.

Not payday, not my bone-in wings when I’m starving at the bar, not when my husband finally rolls over after I nudge him when he’s snoring.

I feel my skin prickling, tingling. I communicate with every limb in my body, willing it to stay loose, lithe, limber; instead of tense, taut, trim.

“If I had only left ten minutes earlier,” I say to myself.

My mantra.

Ten minutes earlier.