I have so many unfinished drafts I want to give my undivided attention to that it makes me feel stuck. I don’t know which thought I should explore first. There are so many items on my to do list that I don’t know how best to organize them. My attention is being pulled in a million directions.
But none of that matters because there is one thing overshadowing everything else.
Here’s a thing. I’m not good at being idle. I am impatient. I prefer movement and motion. The “process” is inconvenient at best, and I’d like to keep things moving. But the truth is that it takes a lot of idleness to gain momentum. The arrow must be pulled backward before it can fly forward.
(I am always debating how honest I should be with you. Should I tiptoe around what I mean? Transparency and vulnerability are not the same thing.)
I used to hate this small town. Growing up I was so vocal about how I was going to get out. I couldn’t understand why no one in my family had before, or if they had I couldn’t understand why they chose to come back. But a nuanced perspective is rarely a quality of the young, and it took time for me to understand the people closest to me.
I only came back here because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought, a bit naively, that I might be here for a few months before I took off for the West Coast. Instead I’ve been here for two years. There are a lot of reasons for this that don’t matter anymore, but one that still does is that it has given me the space and safety to hide, recover, and figure out who I’m going to be next—or again.
I couldn’t explain it at first, but I didn’t mind being back here. I felt far away from the person who hated this place when she was young. I was finding comfort. I read books all afternoon at the coffee shop, I took naps every day, I went on long walks, I spent time with family, or I didn’t talk to a single person all day. I did what I needed to do.
We can’t force our feelings to speed up. I thought a few months would be enough time to feel what I needed to feel, and then I would move on to the rest of my life. I didn’t want to waste any more time. But there was more under the surface than I realized, and it has taken a lot of unraveling. There are still days that I’m caught off guard by something I didn’t know existed. I’m constantly surprised by what I haven’t felt yet.
But once again there is something else stirring underneath.
A few months ago I was complaining to a friend about how frustrated I was feeling; how it feels like nothing I’m doing is inching me toward something else; how I’m restless. I kept talking about how I needed to switch something up, ruminating on trying to find a solution. She finally looked at me and said, “Maybe you feeling frustrated and restless here is a good sign. You’ve always felt restless here. Maybe you’re finally returning to yourself.”
Her statement shifted my perspective entirely. My being comfortable here was the thing that was out of character, not my current restlessness. I’ve been trying to make something work that has never worked. Square peg, round hole.
Risk doesn’t scare me. That’s not to say I’m impulsive. I like to take calculated risks. But I am hesitating on making a decision that I already know the answer to and I don’t know why. I suppose I feel wobbly, unsure of myself. My confidence, which was on shaky ground to begin with, has taken a hit. What I mean is, I have to concede that I might be stalling on making a move because I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes.
This is the moment that has been tripping me up:
I know exactly what I want, I see exactly where I’m going, the fear of inadequacy (and exposure) creeps in, I do my due diligence and poke holes in my plan until it falls apart, and then I go looking for a more foolproof one.
There is probably such a thing as too much due diligence. After all it is only failure I’m afraid of. Though a more accurate sentence might be that I am tired of failure. I don’t know, but I do know I can’t hesitate forever. I know that no matter how much thinking I do I can’t prevent what has already happened, and I certainly can’t prevent every bad thing from happening in my future.
I want to find my way back to making decisions minus the fear of what might happen. I want to pursue what makes me come alive without second guessing myself. I want to not worry so much about the things that have gone wrong, but instead notice what might still go right. All of the best decisions I’ve made were made this way. Excitement has always been my greatest motivator.
Timing is a curious thing. I found something today that I wrote several years ago, when it was a little easier for me to believe my own words:
When you step back and remember that not knowing is way more interesting than knowing, life begins to look hopeful again.
They say anxiety and excitement feel so similar physiologically that we can’t tell the difference. So I’m going to listen to my own advice. I’m going to allow myself to feel the excitement of the unknown.