06/03/2026
Apologies Owed
The first words I spoke today were an apology. It turns out impatience has a way of revealing what we trust—and what we don’t.
Several times a week I take a train to get to my ballroom dance lessons. The trip is a bit of a production: parking garage, 220 stairs to the station, a 75-minute train ride, another 220 stairs on the other side, and then a taxi to the studio. On good days the whole thing runs like clockwork and I even make it to a yoga class beforehand.
Last week was not one of those days.
My ticket purchase hadn’t gone through, which meant I had to buy one at the station. That required a driver’s license. Which, naturally, I did not have with me. The attendant suggested the automatic ticket machine. The machine moved at the speed of cold molasses while the departure clock kept ticking. Ticket finally in hand, I ran up the stairs only to discover the bag screening machine was temporarily down.
Four minutes until the train left.
At that point I was hovering nearby in what could generously be described as an “encouraging posture” toward the security guard.
“Relax,” he said. “You’re going to make the train.”
I did not feel relaxed.
This morning I returned to the station and went straight to the attendant.
“I’m sorry I was impatient with you last week,” I said.
She smiled and replied, “That’s okay. You just really wanted to make that train.”
And that, it turns out, is what grace often looks like in everyday life. For the record, I made the train that day. Which makes me wonder why I didn’t trust that things might work out in the first place.
Impatience is often just a polite way of saying we don’t trust the timing of things.
Maybe that’s one of the quiet lessons of the second half of life. As we navigate midlife transitions, we slowly learn that urgency isn’t always the same thing as importance.
Sometimes the train is already on its way.
And sometimes living with purpose simply means trusting the timing a little more than we did yesterday.
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