the selective patient

I usually think of myself as a highly impatient person. The truth is, however, that I just have extremely selective patience. And I wonder (that's my job these days, wondering) - with a touch of anxiety - where my child will fall in the varied spectrum of people and things for which I have and do not have patience.

Particularly when talking about things like building toward personal, professional, or political growth in myself or my country, I'm generally about as Zen as a spin cycle. But, for example, I have enormous patience for dissecting and eating pomegranates. Where one person sees a cost-benefit analysis that to their mind just doesn't pan out when dealing with fruit – one you must work at to eat – I see major yum. I can stand for as long as it takes, staining outfit after outfit, harvesting beautiful ruby seeds from their stubborn honeycomb, eating them one by one if necessary.

While as a student I have zero patience with fellow students who don't get it or ask teachers for extensive examples of "just what they are looking for", as an ESL teacher, I have extensive patience and understanding. I'm not bothered in the least by having to explain something a million times or deciphering accents and grammatical structures from around the world.

Teaching is tricky, though, and things soon fog. When I'm not teaching ESL, all bets are off. One of my university students who'd rushed back from her wedding (she was the third of my students that semester to miss class to get married) in time to deliver a Power Point presentation on her final research paper didn't get to enjoy much of my magnanimous patience. In a topic selection that at least followed my advice to choose something personally relevant, her project was on "the success and divorce rates of young marriage." Her findings noted a plethora of statistics about who of these wacky young lovers makes it and why. Her presentation came around numerous times to the importance of patience – or rather, what she noted in three-inch letters projected onto the whiteboard in slide after slide as "patients." There are many days when I'm reasonably sure I married my husband because he knows the difference between your and you're. I haven't seen the stats on this kind of match up, but I think we're gonna make it.

It's hard to categorize just where I'll draw the line: Cashiers who can't make change – no patience. Old farmers counting out my change in nickels – patience. Stupid drivers or anyone in something bigger than a Toyota RAV4 – no patience. Drivers who stop and ask me directions – patience. Cleaning up day old oatmeal spills – no patience. Cleaning up cat vomit – patience. My own forgetfulness – no patience. My husband's forgetfulness – patience. (Hey, it happens. Sometimes. Okay, once.) People who lead unexamined lives – no patience.

And so, to be my kid is a crap shoot. Will I endure the fifth feeding of the day with as much patience as the first? Or will I just check in as a patient?