life in the waiting

Emily P Freeman writes, 

“You aren’t moving to figure things out or to catch up to an expectation, but you are moving because you are alive…Instead of a plan, you are simply asked to show up in this day the same way you did the day you were born, with empty hands and an instinct to depend on someone bigger than you.”

How often can you say this is true? How often are you, instead, moving to catch up to an expectation or to plan out A, B, or C? To get to the next thing?

Today I sat at my desk in the corner of my living room. I stared out the same window that I always stare out when the words won’t come and my mind races away with the wind. 

I am back at home. Nothing has changed. The people, the scents, the problems, they are all just the same as they were when I left them.

I sit at my desk with nothing but time on my hands. No plan. No expectation. Just quiet waiting. 

What will come next, I am unsure.

There are expectations for me now that I am home. People want to see me use that expensive piece of paper I spent four years earning. It’s time to settle down, my adventures are over. “Responsibility,” that I am still not convinced doesn’t dress in a pinstripe dress suit with a bold, flowery scarf around her neck, calls and beckons me to work. 

But what work? To go back to counseling–in it’s most traditional–form would be wrong. It would be putting my spirit in a jail cell. It is simply not for me right now. My soul would suffocate. 

“So what then?” Responsibility asks, with her horn rimmed glasses and perfectly glossed lips.

I’ve argued with her more than once today, that Responsibility.

What does it mean to answer her in this moment?

I am tempted to cave, to throw in my metaphorical, artistic towel and put on my loafers and seek out my local psychiatric hospital. (As a counselor, not a patient. Just in case you were confused for a minute.) Remember my amazing friends? Their success? Am I behind?

What do we do when we have no plan and we are left, as Emily Freeman says, “with empty hands and [only] an instinct to depend on someone bigger than you?”

That is currently all I have. Just that instinct. That instinct to believe that there is more. There is more to life than Responsibility and her peep toe, suede, neutral colored heels and perfect pedicure. There is more than “normal.” 

I am convinced that this life has more to offer in the “waiting” of life. 

I am tempted to believe that “life will be…” and that “I will have…,” you fill in the blanks…

Good?

Money?

Success?

Contentment?

Joy?

…when I just…

get that job?

pay that debt?

write that book?

make them happy?

etc. 

But then I remember that life is here. Right here. In this moment where I do not know what Responsibility is really saying. Her language has been muffled and I can see her lips moving but she no longer sounds like my high school French teacher. She now sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher and I am at a lost as to how to follow her instructions. Patience has shown up and he has a rather large smile on his face. Apparently he wants to play for a while and I am suspicious that he is the one who muffled Responsibility’s voice.

Contentment called in this afternoon and proposed that she would like to join in on my life’s fun now instead of later when I “feel” or “appear” more…accomplished? Put together? Ready? On track? Or whatever it is that has been running around in my brain.

{And the I remind myself…I have been home two measly days!!? Shouldn’t we be discussing grand adventures and reminiscing over photos of awesomeness. Why, yes. Yes, you are correct, self…we shall do that Friday. In case you were wondering. ;)}

Are you pursuing dreams? Are you playing with Contentment and Patience daily? Are you rushing, planning, pushing, driving forward to the next big thing, and missing the life in front of you? 

Maybe you’re doing both driving forward hard while being content; who am I to say?

Emily Freeman proposes this question:

“What does it mean to live life like an artist in the midst of this everyday hustle?

That’s what I would like to know. What do you think?

For me, today, it looks like waiting expectantly with grace…

…and writing my darn ass off in the meantime.

What about you?

“I find rest in God; only he gives me hope. 

He is my rock and my salvation. 

He is my defender; I will not be defeated.

My honor and salvation come from God.

He is my mighty rock and my protection.

People, trust God all the time. 

Tell him all your problems…”

{Psalms 62: 5-8, NCV}