Lentemente o Pacientemente?

Lentemente o Pacientemente? Is it slow? Or am I being patient?

I’ve been learning Spanish via Duolingo for several years now, and though I wouldn’t consider myself conversationally fluent, I’m feeling pretty good at what I have learned. I recently passed 2000 days learning on the app (5.5 years – wow!). One might think I should be perfectly fluent by now, and some people might be. I’m not. I’ve been taking it slowly: lentemente.

The last six months have been like that, as I’ve been returning from burnout (that led to illness). Being someone with disabilities and who is immunocompromised, I’ve discovered that “lentemente” is the perfect way to ramp back up.

I was all set to launch a new endeavor, and even put it out socially on my targeted day, but three hours later (after I shared it on all my social channels), I got a call that my mother was unconscious and not waking up. Her aide called an ambulance and what transpired next led to eight days in a coma while I conversed with doctors and nurses about her health history, living situation, and more. My brother went to sit by her almost daily. I went up on the 8th day with my daughter, and as we entered the room she looked right at us. She had finally woken up and was so confused about where she was and what had happened. Five weeks later (after hospitalization and nursing home, and physical and occupational therapies, she’s back in her own apartment and on the path to a full recovery. She is also on a slow path to returning to her typical self. Me, being disabled, I can’t be there to help her as often as I’d like, so we Facetime almost daily, and text several times a day. She’s slowly doing better every day.

I always put family first. I put off the launch of my new endeavor. I wasn’t sure when to launch it “again.” (Let’s just call that earlier day a “test.”)

Having that “extra” time, gave me the opportunity to look a bit deeper at the site I was building. I was dissatisfied with my logo. So I hired someone to build me a better one, which I should have soon. (When things don’t work out, sometimes outsourcing is the best decision.) I also took on a partner in the delivery of the service. (I’m being specifically vague, as I don’t intend to use Post Status to sell my own services, but rather to share the story with you and what I’ve learned from it.)

Outsourcing and partnering was exactly what I needed as a one-person shop (solopreneur always sounds so odd to me). Once I had handed off the logo and brought someone else in, you know what happened? It became easier to breathe. It became easier to sleep. And I am far more confident in what I will offer than I was before those decisions.

So, that launch that almost happened in April? It’s on hold for a few more weeks. And then I will truly launch it with a campaign that you should notice. 🙂

Lentemente y Pacientemente.

Slowly and patiently. Since being “of an older generation” and hitting my … mid life? … let’s call it midlife. Since being in my midlife, I’ve learned to slow down and wait. I’ve learned the pleasure of sitting and looking at nature through a window. I’ve realized that everything doesn’t have to happen all at once, so why have I always felt like it did? I’m like Alexander Hamilton when Elizabeth accuses him of writing like he’s running out of time. I’ve always felt like if I didn’t get it done RIGHT NOW it might never be done.

Life isn’t like that, though. For trying to do everything all at once, you end up burned out.

Pacientemente y Aprendiendo

Patience and learning. It’s actually not true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I’m in my 50’s and learning Spanish, and how to use AI, and how to make better deviled eggs, and I’d still like to learn how to macramé.

I’ve always considered myself a lifelong learner. I love learning new things and visiting new places. Learning has never been difficult.

The patience was the hard part.

I have a friend from college, Eileen Button, who wrote a book called The Waiting Place: Learning to Appreciate Life’s Little Delays. I read it in July 2011 after it was first published, and I’ve re-read it this year. In it she talks about why delays and times of waiting and inactivity can actually be a blessing and lead to better outcomes than when we rush things outside of their natural paces. It’s a brilliant book, and she’s an amazing writer.

La Paciencia Conduce a la satisfacción

Patiences leads to satisfaction. While I’ll never tell you that all delays are positive (I would never have wished that health crisis on my mother, for example), they can have a silver lining of teaching you what is important, and what can wait.

So while I work more patiently toward the launch of my mysterious service (not that mysterious or secret, honestly), I’ll focus on the site, on the partnership, and on the ideal logo.

And while I practice patience, I’ll work on something else on my list, and all will be done when and as they should.

Here’s to wishing you all more patience, more satisfaction, and maybe a little bit of slowness so you can find a more comfortable pace, too.