On the rare occasions when I'm asked to describe myself, I will usually utter the word "efficient," among other things. "Efficient" is the shinier, less abrasive word for "impatient." It also makes me feel better about my hurried self. And anyway, if someone's going to give me the chance to find my own words, then I'm going for a little spit and shine, thank you.
In my quieter, slightly-more-honest moments, though, I know what "efficient" really means.
It means a 35-year-old hairstyle that requires neither styling nor, I suppose, much hair.
It means inky mistakes in the daily crossword, cloaked under great heaps of vocalized confidence.
Drive-thru tacos in wobbly, grease-soaked shells.
Clipped conversations with half-deaf grandparents.
It means occasional bouts with hemorrhoids.
"Efficient" is used dental floss stretched out across the porcelain shoulder of our still-damp bathtub.
It is angular, imperfect smears of blush, usually applied in the dark while I'm on the toilet.
In our living room, "efficient" is cool, green paint spattered along the edges of our ceiling, inches away from its wall-bound kin.
It is two Thanksgiving meals and a few rounds of Yahtzee followed by an early-morning c-section and the Oklahoma game, new daughter in tow.
"Efficient" is single-sentence paragraphs, nearly free of pesky punctuation. (Thus the reason some hives are beginning to emerge as I type this particular paragraph.)
"Efficient" is a 60-second encounter with the daily Word Jumble, a 31-minute church service, an absence of family Christmas letters. It is a fuzzy memory of a long-ago love affair with all things Faulkner.
But "efficient" is nothing without languorous interruptions, without the detailed steps of planning a trip abroad. It is nothing without the practice of real, palpable, unbearable patience as life takes its pretty time to reveal the next storyline. It is hollow without hospice or holiday meals or heaps of free time each summer.
Like most things of value, "efficiency" requires paradox to make it pop. And when it does pop? Best be looking or you might miss it.
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