I struggle with a lot of things – cooking non-carb foods, finishing reading long books, turning off the lights at bedtime… The list goes on and on. Today, we’re going to talk about just two of my many struggles.
Struggle #1: Cooking
Growing up, I never learned how to cook. I remember when my mom told me that all I had to do for the pasta was “just turn on the eye and stir.” Well, at the time, I was too short to see the bottom of the pot, so I just assumed my mom had put water in the pot, along with the noodles. That made sense, right? My mom leaves to go to the store, and about half an hour later, I turn on the stove eye to cook the pasta. Fifteen minutes later, my dad, who is currently sitting in living room, smells something. It’s not a good smell, because it’s the smell of something in the kitchen. Burning.
The stove is on the verge of catching on fire. Smoke is everywhere.
The problem?
There is no water in the pot.
Since that day, my mom never taught me how to cook. Now that I’m in college, I’m starting to regret that. All I know how to make is pasta, rice (because I read the instructions), grits (but I usually burn myself), and chicken (because my friend taught me). This wouldn’t be a problem, except I have to make 14 meals per week on my own. Usually, breakfast is a handful of cereal, because I’m running late to class. But when it comes to lunch, I usually end up making a PB&J sandwich because I don’t know how to make anything else. assuming I don’t want chicken and either rice or pasta.
One day, I will learn how to cook, but that day is not today.
Struggle #2: Waiting for Paint to Dry
Technically, we could call my second trouble “patience,” but right now, I’m literally waiting on paint to dry so I can go to bed. I need to cover my canvas with the “chalkboard overcoat” stuff that I just bought from Walmart, but the coat of colored paint has to finish drying before I can do that. About every 2-3 minutes, I glance over to see if it looks dry yet. It’s been over 20 minutes and the paint still isn’t dry. Needless to say, the paint is probably tired of me watching it dry.
The truth to this is that this is the manifestation of a bigger problem – I don’t have a lot of patience. My parents didn’t have a lot of patience. You do [task] and you do it now. There was never a moment to lose.
Today, this means that I hate it when 1) I’m stuck behind a slow driver and 2) when people take their sweet time responding to my emails. While there are plenty of other ways my lack of patience manifests itself, I see it most clearly through these two means.
I spend at least 45 minutes driving every day. It’s 15 minutes to the junior high school to pick up H—-, 15 minutes to his house, and another 15 minutes from his house back to campus. If I’m going to church or to LIFE Group, it’s another 45 minutes round trip. This doesn’t include my Walmart and Target runs, driving to my tutoring job 25 minutes away, or any other miscellaneous adventures I go on. Each time I’m on the road, I find myself behind a really slow person. No sir, it is not acceptable for you to drive 45 mph when the speed limit is clearly 55 mph. Maybe it’s just me, but if it’s you, please drive the speed limit. This girl has places to go. (Side note: I’m from Atlanta, and people in Atlanta know how to drive. The people in Birmingham can’t drive to save their lives, and this only adds to my driving frustrations).
The second way my lack of patience manifests itself is through email. As a journalism and mass communication major, I send a receive a ton of emails each day. What gets me frustrated is when I send an email and don’t hear back for a couple of days. I work in media and media is always moving forward. If I don’t hear from you within a couple hours, I’m going to be in trouble. I also have a really busy schedule and if you don’t email me back, you’re going to get bumped off my schedule and someone who can respond to my emails will take your spot. So please email me back in a timely manner. I really do want to be friends with you.
I’m done with my rants on what I struggle with. So what do you struggle with?
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