Birthday Reflections on Uncertainty

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It has been about 2 years since I finished college. Turning 24 reminded me of that fact in a big way.  So I’ve been feeling very reflective  - as birthdays tend to do to me. I know someone who’s birthday tradition is to be on the peak of a different mountain each year, to remind himself to stay humble but strong. Another friend takes a long birthday bath each year to wash away negativity and to get her mind and body set for whatever is to come with the next year. So my birthday tradition (however unintentional) is to spend some days or weeks before and after my day looking inward. And really, if there is any time of year when you are allowed to be a bit selfish and spend heaps of time thinking about yourself, it’s your birthday, right? Don’t answer that, cause I’m probably going to continue doing it either way :)

So here I am, 2 years out from college and I’ve been asking myself these questions.

Where are you right now?

What have you accomplished since then?

How are you different?

How are you the same?

Are you where you thought you’d be?

Are you happy?

Have you figured out what to do next?

But mostly….What should I do with my life??

The theme of these years has been uncertainty. Nobody tells you that you’ll feel this way. In fact, after college nobody really told me how anything would be. I’ve been lucky enough to have really outstanding mentors in my life – parents, teachers, friend’s parents, supervisors, parents of kiddos I babysat, community members, aunts and uncles and grandparents and coworkers. I was surrounded by encouragement, stories, and advice that guided me through growing up and helped me set expectations. But after the graduating from college part of those expectations came to fruition, I was left with this giant realization that I was suddenly (and for the first time EVER) free from basically all expectations. It was hugely exciting and incredibly daunting. What now? Start a career? Jump into grad school? Join the Peace Corps? For some reason, I felt like everyone I knew was choosing one of those three options. But I didn’t like any of them. So I decided to take a few years of just living my life in whatever way I felt was right at that exact moment. This would be the first time I was ever just living my own life un-prescribed. And I just needed it. To find my limits and my passions, to practice strong self reliance but to learn when to ask for help without it being offered and how to accept it when it was.  I just needed to live that life until one of those three options felt right or another option presented itself.

So you go with the flow- following whatever opportunities throw themselves at your feet. You avoid making plans at all costs for fear of missing out on a spur of the moment opportunity.  And in this spontaneous, open minded mantra the past two years went with alarming speed.  Travel, meet interesting people –young and old, experience things you thought you never would, challenge yourself, feel scared, love and be loved, find your passion, decide which paths to pursue, feel lonely, learn to confront yourself, be a young twenty-something and stay out too late dancing, climb mountains, find yourself down to your last $20 and ration your chickpeas and rice until the next paycheck, practice making a home wherever you are, work random jobs that you never thought you would, talk to strangers, try saying “yes” to everything for awhile…..or don’t do any of these things. Just do you.

Within the span of these years I have felt incredibly confident in myself, and then a short few months later, plummeted into self doubt. I appreciate every minute of these years (even if I didn’t’ enjoy all of them) and the fact that I have the freedom of mind, body, spirit and finances to follow whatever paths presented themselves to me.

So within all of that uncertainty, a thought…

You can let it paralyze you (as I’ve definitely done more than a few times since college) or you can search out the hope and potential within it and follow those rays into your joy. A lovely lady (one of those people who’s light and wisdom just shine through them into everybody around them) reminded me recently of a favorite poem of mine “Desiderata” which ends with these words. I’m finding them extremely relevant and comforting these days.

“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” If you haven't read this poem, you owe it to yourself to check it out! http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~gongsu/desiderata_textonly.html

That same friend said that it is important to honor ourselves by exploring and expressing our emotions rather than simply acknowledging them and then pushing them away in an effort to move on. So I will remain in this realm of uncertainty. I’ll get to know it. I’ll learn its ins and outs until perhaps it becomes so known to me that it disappears.

Meanwhile, my big birthday gift was this little furball entering my life!

Photo shoot of Hannah and Bean...