Impatience with Lydia Bennet
‘It was the last of the regiment’s stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal… Lydia, whose own misery was extreme… could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family. “Good Heaven! What is to become of us? What are we to do?”’
Chapter 41, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
We are all constantly waiting for something. At the moment, in the UK, our collective impatience is focused on the arrival of summer. We have had such terrible weather for a seemingly never-ending amount of time that we believe that we are now owed some Vitamin D. If only the sun would come out, then perhaps we might start to feel jollier and more optimistic; perhaps we might just start enjoying ourselves again. I am guilty of jumping on this whinge-fest band wagon too; I am more productive when the sky is blue and I am completely fed up with the rain. If I buy into the will it/ won’t it be the wettest summer for 100 years narrative then I project future doom onto events that haven’t even happened yet. No point getting a spray tan for a festival when I’ll be cocooned in a Dry Robe for four days! And thus my mind takes itself off and starts desperately looking for proof that the sun will shine again and that the MET have said it’s too early to tell (which they actually have and all other headlines to the contrary are merely clickbait but I need the concrete evidence NOW!) and that the first four days in August will be hovering in the mid 20s.
I am chronically impatient. If I enter a writing competition, for example, I will constantly refresh my browser, looking for the ‘Congratulations’ email, even before the deadline for entries has passed. I want my house to look nicer NOW; I want to feel the effects of drinking the recommended amount of water instantly; I want to start living the life I believe I deserve, yesterday. Like Lydia Bennet, I want it all. ASAP.
To voice that you are discontent with your lot is to come across as petulant and ungrateful. Lydia Bennet desperately wants to escape the mundanity of her small countryside existence. She knows there is a world out there that is presented to her in the forms of army officers (Bath! London!) In their shiny buttoned uniforms and sophisticated manners, they offer her the opportunity to grow up and break free from sewing in the parlour surrounded by her sisters. She is flighty, excitable and “the most determined flirt”. Who can blame her naivety when Wickham pays her the attention she craves and she elopes with him to Gretna Green (although, as the reader knows, his intention was not to marry her. What a cad/ perv)? Because when you feel as if you are at odds with your current situation, you look outside of it. Out there, somewhere, is THE THING. When you find THE THING you are so consumed by the idea that this is right that you don’t want to have to wait.
Being impatient is also at odds with the more contented promises of ‘the universe having our back’ or the variations of Canva made Insta posts telling us ‘You’re right where you need to be’. Really? REALLY? As I write this, my desk is shoved into the corner of a bedroom which I can only imagine the architect of Googled ‘How tall was the average person in the Middle Ages?’ and ‘What is the ratio of window to wall in the average prison cell?’ when they designed the proportions. And yet, again, in typing that sentence, the subtext spoken in the type of whine I would tell my kids off for, my impatience is doing nothing for me. As I would say to my children: Stop. Moaning.
I am going to stick up for Lydia Bennet because, although Lizzy bemoans the “ignorance and emptiness of her mind” she channels her impatience into action. Lydia knows what (or rather who) she wants and she sets out to get it. I don’t judge her silliness- we’ve all done things when we were younger that an older person might look at us and say ‘Eh?’- or the impetuous nature of her sneaking out to gun it to Scotland with a stone-cold (but skint) fox, as I think there is something to be learned from her behaviour.
Feeling as if your life is in limbo can hit anyone at any time. Usually when we make it to a milestone birthday, or we come out of the other side of having young children and we do an audit of where we find ourselves, we can feel as if life has happened to us, as if we haven’t been an active part in arriving at the place we are now.
But we have. Because what impatience really is, is a desire for control. If we realise that we have made choices throughout our lives then we also realise that we can make more choices. If we find ourselves feeling off, or discombobulated, or distant from ourselves and wanting to change that, then we have to turn that into action. There’s no point having endless discussions about when the sun will shine again if we can’t honestly know.
If you’re impatient to ‘live your life’, then, like Lydia Bennet, you have to actually get off your arse and do it. (Travel to the Scottish Borders: optional).
Resting Brontë Face Recommends:
I always start my day with one of these adaptogenic coffees (does wonders for taking down the early morning school run atmosphere down a peg or two)
Having said all this- if the universe could make it sunny for Wilderness Festival I would be eternally grateful