Working Patience

 There’s nothing like taking on some big project, something that at first might seem impossible, and then little by little you see it come together. 

A couple of months ago we started to redo our kitchen by painting our kitchen cabinets (I know, now you feel bad for us). We knew it was a lot to take on, we knew it was going to take a while to complete, and we knew that anyone who has ever painted their kitchen cabinets will quickly say that is a project they would never do again. We knew all of this and we started the project anyway.

Yes, it is now two months later and we are still working on it, but I have figured out, I don’t hate painting kitchen cabinets. I actually kind of enjoy it. It’s not bad…you simply put on a coat of paint, show a little patience, wait a couple of hours, then put on another coat of paint. No big deal. 

But there has been a part of this project I have hated. Hated so much I thought at one point we were going to give up. It’s not the painting…it’s the prepping!

For two days straight all we did was PREPARE the cabinets to be painted. We gave ourselves three days to complete the project, and it took two of those days just to get it ready! We had to number the cabinet doors, remove the cabinet doors, remove the hardware, clean the doors, degloss the doors. We had to do the same to the cabinet frames, then we had to tape around the cabinet frames. Then we had to remove the drawers and clean the drawers and degloss the drawers. I mean, on and on and on. 

The getting ready part seemed never ending. Not to mention, it seems like you see absolutely no progress during that part. It’s not like after two days we could sit back and say, yes we worked all day but see how good it looks. No! We had nothing to show for all our work except a torn apart kitchen and some rough-looking disassembled cabinets.

I’m telling you, it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. It was hard to show the right kind of patience. Not like the kind when I am waiting for paint to dry. Oh, no. That would be too easy. No, we had to be patient while also putting in the work. We had to be patient while also putting in the time. We had to be patient even when we wanted to give up. Just showing patience, the waiting kind of patience, was not going to get the job done.  We had to show the working kind of patience. The kind of patience where you are just work, work, working and just somehow knowing that what you’re working towards will eventually happen, even when it doesn’t seem that way.

The truth is, working patience is hard.

Turns out, we were showing working patience in other ways, too. Like working towards paying off the large amount of student loan debt we have accumulated and carried with us for the past 20 years.

In many ways, it has been much like working on the kitchen cabinets. There has been a lot of work going towards it but with little to show at first. And I have finally figured out, it isn’t hard to make the extra payments, it’s hard doing what we have to do to have the extra money to make the extra payments.

For years we have been making our minimum payments and knowing we were not getting very far. We knew we were going to have to make big changes and we knew we were going to have to stick with them. We knew we were going to have to focus more on our needs and to reevaluate our wants. We knew there were going to be things we were just going to have to say no to. We knew things would eventually be worth it, but there was a long time it sure didn’t seem that way.

Much like the cabinets, we felt like we were seeing absolutely no progress at first. It’s not like after a couple of weeks or even a couple of months we could sit back and see how much we had done. No! It felt like we had nothing to show for the sacrifices and changes we had been making.

I’m telling you, there were plenty of times it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. It was hard to show the right kind of patience. But we had decided we were going to be patient while we put in the work. We were going to be patient while we put in the time. We were going to be patient even when we wanted to give up. We were going to show the working kind of patience it was going to take to do what we wanted to do.

And the truth is, working patience is hard. 

I think about those kitchen cabinets. I think about what would have happened if we would have walked away after two days. If we would have said this is not what we signed up for. If we would have said this kitchen looks worse now than when we started.

And I think about other times when we could have walked away. When we could have said this is not what we signed up for. When we could have said this is worse than when we started. 

And I think about working patience.

Much like the cabinets coming along, slowly but surely, I think about how much closer we are now to having those student loans paid off. While it seems we spent so much time “getting ready” to pay them off, we are now knocking off bigger and bigger chunks with each passing month.

Yes, it has been over eight weeks and my kitchen is still not finished. But that’s okay. Day after day, week after week, we keep showing up, we keep putting in the work, and we keep getting closer to having it done.

Yes, it has been over six months since we committed to paying off the student loans and we still are not finished. But that’s okay, too. Week after week, month after month, we keep sticking to our plan, we keep putting in the work, and we keep getting closer to having them paid off.

Yes, working patience is hard. No, it’s not like sitting and waiting for paint to dry. And that’s okay. The truth is, you keep showing up, you keep putting in the work, and you eventually see that what once seemed impossible, little by little has all come together!