I am a pretty patient person in general; rush-hour traffic doesn’t bother me, I can show up early for appointments and easily entertain myself until I’m wanted. I can wait for Christmas morning and summer break and the first day of school.

I can wait.

I am not a patient person when it comes to things I want.

If I want something, and it’s within the realm of possibility — meaning that I don’t need to break the time-space continuum or engage a team of scientists or programers to make it happen — there are two possible things that will happen. Either I will talk myself out of wanting it, or I will do anything in my grasp to get it.

I talk myself out of lots of stuff. When shopping, I will hold something for the entire half-hour I’m wandering around the store, but put it down when it comes time to actually pay for it, convinced that it’s too expensive and I can live without it. If I make plans early in the week, sure that the event is one I must attend, I will have managed to convince myself by Saturday night that I don’t want to go out, and would really rather stay home and read a book.

Then there are things that I want very badly, and whether or not I can afford it or is good for me, I’ll get no matter what. My Wii is a good example. I don’t really need it, probably should have saved my money, but I wanted it more than I’ve wanted anything else in a long time. My sister bought it for me the week before spring break, and I was impatient to get home and play with it. Books fall into this category too; I have far too many books waiting to be read, but every time I go to the bookstore, I end up with more, impatient to have them waiting and available to be read, whether or not I’m going to read them in the immediate future or not.

This impatience for things I want extends past physical goods — it extends into personal relationships as well.

I’ve been hanging out with a guy for a while now that I really enjoy spending time with. We go to the movies and sometimes to the bar, we play video games and board games, we hang out in groups of friends or on our own, we txt and IM and stay up far too late at night doing absolutely nothing. We were not introduced by friends, and so have to decipher each other’s character without an intermediary to help us along, pointing out habits that are ingrained but not obvious to the casual observer.

We do not talk at all about what it is we’re doing, or if it means anything at all.

Part of me is thrilled with this. I like the uncertainty this brings to my life, the unexpected curve-balls inherent in any new thing.

I’m trying very hard to be patient. To let things go on in their slow undefined state, to take things as they come, to puzzle them out and slowly decipher this fragile thing that has sprung up in an unexpected place.

I have never been patient when it comes to relationships. I’ve always been afraid of the awkward stages where nothings been defined, and you don’t know where anything is going, and a misspoken word — let alone a blog post — can screw the whole thing up. And I’ve always been afraid of screwing things up.

So here I am. Half of me wanting to let this play out slow, to live in the moment of not knowing, to relish in the uncertainty and the whims of life, the other half wanting to know where we are now so that I can expect what’s coming in the future. Is this a fling, something to fill the time between classes and homework, or is it serious, where there’s a chance of meeting parents and comparing histories and learning what makes each other tick?

And the part of me that wants to define what this is doesn’t care what the definition is. There’s no set answer I’m looking for. It’s just that I haven’t figured out how to be psychic yet, and I’m not sure what is expected or wanted from me, and that makes me impatient.

So, I’m trying to wait, to be patient and not force something that isn’t ready. It’s driving me (and those closest to me who must listen as I try to puzzle it out) batty that I can’t let it be, let it play out and unfold without any hints to what is coming. That I can’t stop analyzing what this is that’s standing before me.

But you know what?

I can wait. I’m going to have to.