Part II: Moved All the Way to Maine, Still Me

Impatience is unprocessed fear.

I read today that impatience is unprocessed fear. (source) Have you heard this before? I hadn’t and it burned me like a thousand suns on a body that has been indoors for months in a row after a long Winter.

I am innately an impatient person. I drive faster than the speed limit. I interrupt my husband ad nauseam. I want the main characters in my books to make out immediately - even though I live for the slow burn romance. I have to really concentrate and slow it way down and get good sleep to be patient.

I know it is human to want the answers, our brain loves the cozy comforts of certainty. Where I become a little non-human is when I want the answers faster than everyone else or as a pick-me-kid waving my hands in the air to my teacher leaning over my desk in elementary, to speak the answer out loud faster than everyone else so I feel special.

Living in Maine the past two years has really challenged this part of my human design. The speed limits here are really slow. I am talking 25 mph in a lot of the areas of the coastal town I drive through. The median age here is 60.3 years old so people are slowing down already in life (no offense, I hope to be slowing it way down at 60.3 years old, too). The ocean takes her time to warm up with the Summer sun, I am talking August and the water is okay-ish to get in. Don’t even get me started on Summer sun as I type this to you on another rainy morning in Maine.

One of my favorite pieces to date that you all have loved to read is this one titled, “Move All the Way to Maine, Still Me. Ugh.” I love this one, too. Ironically, you can tell I took my time writing it. The whole thing is riddled with my impatience as I write about moving to Maine and the grandiose hopes I held for some magic wand to fix all of me in a matter of two months.

I am curious, do you journal at all?
Write a substack-y type blog/vlog?
Even instagram works, actually.

I ask because I am not one to save all my old notebooks with my scribbles and thoughts pen to paper. I don’t have that kind of attachment (to things-things) or the spatial organization. I honestly cringe when I read my old notes. I do have exactly two journals saved for days I need that teaspoon of cringe, one from my very God-squad days of life and another from my study abroad life when I lived in Australia at age 20.

However, I was reading that essay - which is a form of an old journal - about moving and still being myself just this past week while chuckling at all the things that actually did come to fruition, with time. And then I saw that quote about the unprocessed fear and the light bulb flicked on.

The fear I was feeling when I wrote that essay 23 months ago, it was overwhelming and unprocessed. I didn’t write this part but I had so much fear that my heart would never heal from grief. And I had fear that I would never like this version of me that was more sad than I ever knew myself to be before. And then, if I didn’t like me, how does Chris still love me? (okay, that part could be an entire book). And how will I make new friends here in Maine, what do I even have to offer now? And if I don’t have local friends to make eye contact with, how will I survive this human life? And does it actually rain all the time in Maine because it seems like it so far? And are my sisters and our friends mad? And what if I cannot put the pieces of my business back together or gasp, start anew? And so many other fears…

It was a lot.

And to my dismay and to the utter dismay of the version of me that wrote that other piece two years ago, I am a morning person now. Not a shiny one - but I get up most days at 6:18am EST. And I meditate now. I actually lay down with an eye pillow and explore yoga nidra or self compassion. I did find a place to put my shoes. And I did make the most amazing friends that taught me how to be a friend to them and to this version of myself. And my heart, oh my sweet heart, is healed and I know grief now as a dear friend of mine that stops by - often unannounced - for a chat and a cry.

And it was all in time.
Not by any means on my timeline, but nonetheless, right on time.

I feel different.
My heart feels different.
I even feel patient.
And yet, still me.

P.S. And want to hear something weirder? The broken clocktower that chimed whenever it wanted and was never the right time - well, it is now set to the right time and oddly only chimes at 11pm at night. Wild, right?

Photo next to my beloved and healing ocean here in Maine x Heather Nyquist Photography and styled by dear friend and stylist (a Maine friend I made!) Megan Nesher

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