“I called it patience for eight months. It was availability, and they never once had to ask for it.”

Patience is something you decide to give. Availability is something you leave switched on. For most of that time I would have told you I was being generous, and it was true in the sense that it cost me something.

What was not true was that anyone had asked. There was no conversation where we agreed I would wait, no moment where they said what they were waiting for. I had made an arrangement with myself and then quietly held them to it. The first honest thing I did was put a date on it, privately, and watch what happened before it arrived.