Patience: my fatal flaw. Always has been, but I hope it won't always be. I have been aware of this shortcoming for quite while now, but add an international move and trying to learn a new language, some of your lesser qualities have a way of sneaking out.
Thinking about how things have changed for the better since moving here is good medicine. I think back to when we had no internet and lived with rental furniture, I was so excited to receive our things and make our new place our home. I think about how daunting small everyday tasks were, like going to the grocery store, getting gas, and goodness forbid, talking to people. I think about the stresses in trying to figure out doctors, vets, cars, trains, pet stores, registrations, random tests and even finding that one ingredient at the grocery store that takes you an hour more than you thought.
Somewhere, someone is teaching me a very valuable lesson; one that I have been too stubborn to focus on in the past... patience. All of the "problems" I mentioned above are now solved. We are 2/3 of our way through the drivers license process, and I have to admit that my German is even getting... slowly...better. We have transformed our place into our home. I know where everything is in my little town, and some of the surrounding ones as well. I feel comfortable driving, riding trains, and saying "Guten Tag" to random people. I no longer feel as though I am going to explode from my own ignorance or naïveté. So, moving forward, I will always remind myself to look back at all of the little accomplishments, to remind myself, the triumphs are worth the wait, and having it all at once wouldn't be that fun.... really.
