I have to remind myself how quickly life can change when, for months on end, I feel stuck in a rut. Living through a global pandemic has absolutely contributed to this isolated, stuck feeling when so many activities that felt like expansion and brought joy suddenly came with high risk. So many of us shut ourselves inside our homes, turned inward, and found comforting routines which could keep our spirits up; different areas of our life have been put on hold.
Just as one routine changes, like you start to incorporate going out to eat back into your routine, or sending the kids back to school, suddenly something pops up which changes our decision. I had a friend who decided to move closer to her husband’s job, but as soon as they started looking at houses they realized they wouldn’t find an upgrade- so suddenly they’re turning to remodeling their home. Something she had never dreamed of doing! Or, for me- I was settled into my brand new home office for just 6 months before Dave’s job became a permanent work from home position- and suddenly our *new* perfectly sized home became two sizes too small for us.
And you can’t do anything about it.
This is the heart of what I struggle with when things aren’t changing: no matter how much I desire change in my life- I have no control over whether things are happening (or not).
If I had it my way, over the last couple of years I would have already been married to Dave, started a family, and been renting out our first home while inhabiting a new home perfect for our new growth. I was ready for this gateway in early 2020 for sure, but …. Life happened. It wasn’t just the pandemic, although working in the wedding industry during this crisis was not easy. We were forced to really look at and work on our relationship as we navigated through our impacted business, and being together at home 24/7. I don’t think I’ve even fully processed just how difficult that’s been or how much it’s affected me.
Before you know it, we’re almost 2 years into this thing and instead of having the things I truly desired, I instead had been putting on a whole damn circus as far as where my energy has been. That’s the truth. Because of financial need, all of my energy has been directed toward keeping our ship floating during a very scary time in our lives. After two years of this, I found myself staring our the window each day thinking- there’s GOTTA be something else out there. How do I get myself out of this vicious cycle?
Now there’s a whole different story about my plan out of the darkness, but that’s for a different time- the point of this story is the revelation that all this time I’ve felt separate from what I’ve wanted is truly just an acceptance that this is what life IS sometimes.
Chapters in life unfold on one path. You learn, explore, get tossed around, respond, figure stuff out- and as much as you may want a change of scenery, or to branch off the path, or have the opportunities in front of us that our friends have on theirs- eventually what’s meant to find us, WILL.
For some of us the path between one crossroad and the next can be long, almost highway like lane, where there’s not an exit (moreless a gas station) in sight. But when things DO change- wow can that change fast.
I know you can think of a time in your life when it was like a tornado blew in and within a short period of time, everything was different.
Take my sister for instance- she left on a trip in May of 2021 for a work trip to Florida and to catch up with old friends. She had no plans to change her life completely when she left on that trip, yet two months later she was a Florida resident! And everything she had to do to move her entire life across the country was absolutely epic and stressful. Yet she did it. It changed that quickly.
She recently reminded me of that short timeline, and it really gave me so much perspective and hope as I’ve been trudging through my muddy path these past few years. There’s something inside of me that just knows that everything we’ve been through, it’s for a reason. It’s either been putting tools in my tool box, building my resilience, and teaching me patience that I’ll need in the future. The things I desire are coming- just slower than I thought I’d asked for.
If you can relate to any of this, it is my hope that you find comfort in remembering just how quickly life can change. Those things that we desire: the dreams, the opportunities, the change- it’s coming. Our job in the meantime is to keep preparing ourselves for it. And, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to check that we’re not subconsciously investing into something that is actively getting in the way of what we want either!
If you want to hear a few more thoughts and stories about just how quickly life can change, and a different take on the message above, check out my podcast below which is the sister episode to this post. New episodes arrive every Tuesday!
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