Those who know me, can tell you, patience is really not one of my virtues. That’s why I surprise even myself sometimes, when I pull it out of I don’t have a clue where. It’s completely outside my box.
Closest friends know how to turn my pis*yness into a joke, and I know how to make fun of myself by now as well. But with new experience I’ve come to realize, I will have to tone it down a bit, my quick reactions. Not just because of other people, but for my sake as well.
So why all this about my (im)patience?
Last weekend we went to Taif on a trip. It’s a smaller city, a little over 2 hours away. Because I enjoy planning and organizing, I threw myself with delight into research on where we might go and which places we would see, and I asked him to make a hotel reservation. I asked him two or three times. And his (Arab/Sudanese) logic in response was completely ludacris to me:
“I’ll google it when we come there. It will give better results.”
“Whaaat? Are you serious? No, no. Please, search for 3 backups for where we can spend the night. Just in case,” I continued bothering him, but at some point stopped and let go.
I don’t think he realizes, how much strength I have to gather each time, to release this stiff, inherited from my mother, “I have to have everything under control” tendency, and I head in a completely opposite direction, which is “go with the flow.”
Friday morning we were good and ready to go around 6 am; suitcase was packed the evening before, the bag with drinking water and snacks too, even a thermos with fresh tea for the road. The drive there was nice, comfortable. GPS lead us to the mountains around Makkah on a longer route for some reason, but we managed to enjoy our time and talk the entire way, after all, we were finally going on a trip outside of Jeddah.
In Taif our virtual guide decided, we needed some extra spice on top of our adventure. I planned and bookmarked all the stops on our map, but there was obviously enough time on our schedule to test my patience as well.
Strange paths, long way around and off road even, at some point we ended up in a muddy hollow, where a few cars were parked.
People, mostly families, were resting under the trees. I started telling myself in a familiar sarcastic tone, how all these people must have been looking for the funicular, same as us, but they ended up here, thanks to uncle Google, and gave up.
But something in me clicked in that moment, when I saw, that he was losing his patience for a change. That his otherwise easy going character was being tested. Obviously I am able to gather up enough sense, so I don’t make matters worse in these kind of situations. So we can find our way out of muddy hollows together and reach our destination in the end.
Search for the accommodation took some time as well. And I let it be. What would I achieve with my vexing? In the evening we went to a restaurant, which he found online. “It’s supposed to be good, popular.”
Oh, it was popular alright. We waited 30 minutes in line at the reception for a table, where they seemingly forgot all about social distancing. In general, we had a feeling that Taif locals took this pesky corona thingy very lightly. So, we got our table. I was worried then about the prices in such a popular place with a very attractive ambiance. Comparing to Jeddah standards I was really concerned. He said, I shouldn’t be. It was our anniversary. I guess it pays off not to be cranky and negative sometimes, because dinner turned out great, and the bill was a complete surprise. A positive one, of course. For similar service they would bleed us dry in Jeddah. In Taif we dined like kings.
It was a wonderful trip. I wish for more weekends like this one, especially now that I’ve discovered a new superpower: patience.
