A Quiet Space

photo courtesy of here


Things have just been crazy here for the longest. I have been dancing, working, and trying to find work, and in between trying to figure out where my life is going and where it is supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do next and what I'm supposed to be when I grow up and what if I don't go in the right direction and how am I supposed to figure this out when I'm so busy, busy, busy all the time? And nothing is coming clear, and hasn't for a while. I've noted on here several times my feelings of restlessness, of wanting to know why I'm doing the things that I'm doing and figure out what I love and what my life's work should be, and there is no clarity. But, I am realizing, I can't make space right now for that clarity to emerge. It's like I'm running around and running around and every so often I run past my Life and I grab her by the shoulders and start shaking at her and screaming in her face, "What do you want from me, what should I do, what are the next steps, where is all this headed, why am I doing it, what's going to happen, tell me, tell me, tell me!!!!!!" And then before she can even process the terrifying experience, I'm off and running again, angry now that I'm not getting the information.

Unfortunately, I can't slow down, not right now. The things that I am doing are all essential, and there's nothing that I can drop from my schedule to make more space. But, I figure, while things are this way, the least I can do is let Life rest in her little corner, drink a cup of tea and breathe so that she has some time to sort things out, and come back when I have a little more time to have a proper conversation. And, with that realization, that surrender of control and willingness to just do what has to be done right now and not worry and obsess over the future (I think of it as "fretting," because I love that word. I am a first-class fretter) with the acknowledgement that I just don't know right now and probably won't for a while, there is a quiet space that I can be in and get my work done. I think that faith in God allows us to believe that everything is not going to spin out of control if we turn our back for a second or decide to take a nap. I was listening to a wonderful podcast by my "adopted-uncle-even-though-we've-never-met-and-he-doesn't-know-I-exist," Tim Keller, and the gist of it was, "People are always asking me 'How can I know the will of God for my life?' and I always tell them: submit your life to him, and make a decision." Okay. It's all in his box now, not mine.

And I think, as far as the future goes, I want to do less fretting, and more daydreaming. Daydreaming is great because the way that I normally attack these kinds of things is with a spreadsheet, with columns for interests and columns for things that seem financially viable and point values for everything, and there's lots of really hard math involved and after doing that for a while, your soul gets crushed to a powder. But daydreaming...ah, daydreaming allows for ambiguity, allows for the possibility that you might accomplish more than you know is possible right now, allows for the flexibility that your life might have multiple destinations instead of just one, and allows for the possibility that, instead of ending up terribly, your life might just meander somewhere great, all on it's own, without your white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel.

Today is unfolding as just that kind of day. Kind of rainy and cold, but inside and dry now, cup of coffee in hand, candles lit, and deep breathing.

Oh, and btw, I did not get here on my own. I was a raving, whinging lunatic last night. Many thanks to K. for listening to me whine (for hours! hours! incomprehensibly!) and talking me down. We came back to that quote from Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, "...when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born--and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible." Okay then, Big and Lovely, hands off the wheel. You can come out now.

S.