As I write it’s 11 PM on Monday, May 16. Today has been a good day. A day where I can again see what I know to be true instead of seeing nothing because I’m overwhelmed by anxiety. I’ve had some time to think more clearly today about some things that have been lurking in my brain, but veiled and unclear.
Last year I came up with my seven-year plan – what I want to do over the next seven years to get me to something that has long been a dream of mine. Over the last few weeks that dream has vanished, or so I thought. It turns out my dream has changed.
This realization was hard. It tossed me upside down and turned me around and was one thing too much on top of all the other stuff that’s currently swirling around me. It made me question everything about myself and my identity, which was based largely on who I was in the environment that would allow this dream to be.
Some time in the last week I have started to see that new vision of my future more objectively, though as I type I notice an increase in adrenaline that tells me I’m not at ease with this yet. But I know it’s a process.
The other day I came across a quote. It was one I’d never heard before, though the sentiment was certainly not new, and I liked it. It embedded itself in me, somewhere comfortable where I could sit with it and see if I could allow it to be true.
Today I came across it again. Twice.
For at least two weeks, I’ve had a series of posts in draft that are meant to be grand, insightful, and inspiring descriptions of how I’ve found my purpose and why I think everyone should pay attention to signs. So far those drafts are mostly blank – just a source and an idea – with no way to express what the path it suggests for me is supposed to look like.
There are reasons I can’t solidify that path yet. Practical reasons, like money and family and mortgages. There are also emotional reasons for it, like the bigger battle I’m currently waging, but also the unanswered questions: How? And what if? And what if I don’t…?
But those questions aren’t going to answer themselves, and I’m starting to see the practical reasons less and less as obstacles. Sometimes we’re just meant to do something and while for me it’s not what I thought, I’m starting to understand a bit more what my something might be.
So, back to that quote. It’s time to do something about it.
I’m going to start taking little steps to see if all the things I’ve held on to for so long are things I can let go of to make space for the something that’s waiting for me.
I won’t do it all at once, but I’m going to start letting go.
