I am in this weird, uncomfortable stage of life right now called transition, where everything is changing and I’m not actually sure where I’m going or how I’m going to get there, but I KNOW I am going in the right direction…to somewhere.
A few weeks ago I was heading down the rabbit hole of frustration and not knowing where to put my energy and I wrote down- “Live one day at a time for now. Practice not knowing and trusting the process.”
Sounds kind of romantic unless you are one who actually likes to grip on to what you know.
I teach the value of trust and even techniques how to trust, but what I know for sure is, trust is not easy when you have been trained to not trust. It takes daily practice when your default is to control the world around you. Or at least think you are controlling the world around you.
I woke up last week and had the urge to go check out a new library. The library has been my destination of choice as of late to get out of the house and write or do work…or just sit in the energy of all those words and dreams that came to life on paper.
I had a strong pull to go to this one library and feel it out. I wasn’t sure why and when I questioned if that was REALLY where I wanted to go, the answer was yes.
Okay, I’m in. Although I will readily question my intuition, I also know it rarely steers me wrong when I follow through to the end of whatever adventure it takes me on.
This time was no different.
My drive to the town library 30 minutes from my house was not what I expected. Beautiful, yes. It usually is. But quiet? No.
As I drove by a few familiar houses and vista points my emotions began to bubble up and my mind began to race. The ache I thought I had moved through began to resurface.
Ugh. What do you want now??
“You’re not done feeling this one yet.”
The tears began to silently drop one by one. “What happened? How did I get here?”
The confusion began to flood my thoughts as well. The multitude of question marks and lack of periods.
Can’t I just accept it for what it is? A part of the journey. An experience I was meant to have. Maybe I don’t need to know why. Maybe I just need to appreciate what is.
The sadness filled my chest.
“I just wish I knew…” I heard her say.
She speaks often- the part of me that wants to understand life and it’s meaning. The part that likes to make sense of it all. But I can’t yet. I’m still in the middle and I can’t see what is meant to be next. I’m simply supposed to TRUST it’s all happening for me.
My conversation with my client earlier in the morning popped up in my mind.
While she spun in circles with the fear of not getting the home she wanted, I recounted the story of buying my current home. I thought I was buying a different house, one I thought was perfect for me.
Everything lined up as though it was meant to be mine. I did the daily drive by stalk. I felt myself living there. I envisioned it as though it was mine. And then, when I least expected it, it dropped out. It was no longer an option.
Within a week, my current home popped up on the market and took the offer I never dreamed would work. It took another year of more question marks than periods for the house to officially be mine and mine alone, but the windy road brought me to a place that at once seemed impossible.
One door closed for another to open.
I know how it works….but it doesn’t turn off the grief.
Even knowing its “happening for a reason” doesn’t eliminate the discomfort or frustration or old feelings that wanted to remind me they still needed to be felt.
Including the aftershocks after the quake…
I arrived at the library and it was not what I thought. It seemed as though it was a temporary location while whatever new library was being worked on. The library I was drawn to visit was also in transition.
When I went inside it was busy and uninviting and it didn’t really have the vibe that anyone wanted to be there. I took a quick tour of a few different rooms and quickly determined, I too, did not want to be there. I walked out.
“Why am I here? What brought me here?”
I got in my car and decided I would try another library closer to home I hadn’t been to but always wanted to go. Accepting the reroute, I turned the music up in my car as I headed towards my next destination.
And then it came…the answer. I was brought this way to feel my feelings. To go back over the ground of the familiar to bring up what felt unexpressed. I didn’t WANT to feel the sad but the sad still needed some space to breathe and the stomping grounds I drove through brought out the memories I needed to feel it through.
Fiiiine.
The current journey was my destination. The unexpressed feelings were the experience I was avoiding. I drove there not to experience the new but to feel the old, so I could open myself up to the new.
As I walked into the next library, tiny and full of good vibes, I was directed to the children’s room. My eyes welled up when I walked down the stairs and saw the long table covered with books inviting me in.
Welcome to the day’s serendipity.
Surrounded by joy and colorful captures of life in the most whimsical forms. I had almost forgotten, I too, had created one of these live treasures. My own published children’s book brought to life by the visions inside me coming out to be seen. I was surrounded by dreams that looked like mine reminding me to stay the course and see how it plays out.
It is indeed scary to not know where you will go and be at end of the day. Yet the journey is also one full of possibility, hope, dreams and unknowns which could turn in to the dreams you didn’t know you had.
So much passion waiting to come alive and birth into the fullness of life.
Maybe I don’t know where I need to be. Maybe there is no need at all. Maybe each day has its own set of serendipity waiting to be experienced when you open the door to live it.
I don’t know what I’m doing next, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe I never really did.
Where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be. And maybe trusting the process is learning to be okay with that.