Some life lessons we are meant to learn. . . over. . . and over again.

Not long ago I wrote about patience.  I quoted a one-time client, who didn’t take well to my advice to “Be Patient.”

“Patient?! Alan, the world was not built by patient men!”

I went on to note that high performing entrepreneurs and inventors were not known as the soul of patience. Neither, I suppose, are military leaders. It is hard to imagine General Patten, Napolean, or Genghis Khan, being described as patient.

I have in my life been patient, sometimes with children, sometimes too much with people who were behaving badly towards me. One thing I have learned about myself: I am NOT a patient patient. By reasons of my upbringing, it takes a long time for me to concede to see a doctor. When I finally do, I expect miracles, instantaneous miracles, or faster, if possible, please.

I am not patient with my own body, which  (who?) I sometimes accuse of, and demean for, letting me down, even when I have been abusing it (him?). Separating my body from myself and anthropomorphizing that part of me as separate from me, is an artifact of my upbringing too.

For most of my life, I have been fortunate to be extraordinarily healthy.

At seventy and seventy-one, my patience as a patient was tested when I fell running and did some damage to my cervical spinal cord. I wrote how helpful I found Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer:

“Lord, please give me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change,

The courage to change those things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.”

A surgeon performed a minor miracle on my neck. I am extraordinarily grateful. I wasn’t patient. I pushed myself in physical therapy (PT) and I recovered use of my disconnected body double. “Good job, body, ole pal. Took you a while, but you got there.”

Now I face another challenge.

As a child my mother reacted to an ugly face I made. “Don’t do that. Your face will freeze that way.”

A week ago, my face froze. Or, at least, the left side of my face stopped working and drooped. Thankfully, my problem is not one of the more disastrous causes of such an effect, stroke, brain tumor, or meningitis. I have an attack of Bell’s Palsy.

Bell’s Palsy is an overload of cranial nerve number seven, which controls facial movement and expression. The cause is “idiopathic,” which is to say that medical science has no clue why it happens. It sometimes happens in response to a virus, or bacterial infection, stress, or multiple minor issues.

Recovery time is indeterminate, five days, three weeks, three, six, nine months. A few unfortunate sufferers need surgery to recover; fewer still fail to heal, smile crookedly, but live otherwise normal lives.

“So, lighten up Alan,” my estranged bod might rightfully respond. “Yeah, drinking coffee through a straw is a pain and you have to remember to chew on the right side so the food stays in your mouth. But quit whining! There are too many people in Greater Los Angeles whose everything has been consumed by fire, and too many in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan who live with bombs falling on their heads, and too many injured, ill, or hungry, who may not live to see the dawn.”

“Suck it up. Rest. Get through the effects of Prednisone withdrawal, see the neurologist. Do the PT.”

“Yeah and I can practice the lines of side-talkers throughout history:

• WC Fields: ‘my little chickadee,’
• Edward G. Robinson: ‘Tough guys don’t dance, see. Tough guys’ guts cut and bleed in a knife fight.’
• Edward Teach, Jack Sparrow, Pegleg Pete: ‘Arrgh, Matey’ (Actually, I won’t be eighty for three years –  hopefully this’ll be over by then. Arrgh, Matey, I’m 80 – get it?).”

“STOP! Send some money to relief efforts!”

“OK body, bud, I’ll be a more patient, patient. You know we ought to work together more. Integration. That’s the ticket.”

“Yeah? I’ll believe it when I see it.”