It's so strange to me how my life unraveled. I had a one-year plan, a five-year plan, and was debt-free.
Solid in a long-term relationship, perched on the edge of completing my master's degree, pregnant and ready to begin the next adventure.
But then my girlfriend left me and my four-month pregnant self...
My perfectly planned life froze.
Fast forward a few depressing months and I began to plan again.
I moved across the country, settled for a job that paid me well and tried my best to figure out how to parent alone. Establishing an even keel isn't easy as a parent, much less a single mom - but I found my rhythm and remembered how much I loved life. Each day with my little man was better than the last...
Then another shitstorm hit. I lost my job, smashed my car and once again my special, special plans were at the bottom of a smoldering heap of yuck.
I always thought we get presented with challenges over and over for a reason. We are meant to learn to navigate through the trials with a bit more grace than humans usually show. And I seemed to be needing some practice in faith.
Faith is easy when things are smooth. It's nearly effortless to believe all is well when things are going your way. But to hold that faith when you feel so alone, so scared and totally frozen amid your destroyed plans? Well that takes a serious shift in perspective.
One of the tricks is to stay right in the moment. I can guarantee that most of the fear creeping in has to do with prior injustices or upcoming hurdles. But if you can keep your focus just on the second you are in, and feel safe and strong, well you can consider that a great second :)
Pretty soon you will find yourself stringing a few decent moments together...and then a few more...and then before you know it maybe you'll even have an entire day of feeling peace.
But the fear still comes of course.
And today I found myself wondering why in the hell I left an easy career as a software analyst to make half as much as a nurse. Nobody poops on software analysts.
But then I realized something...nursing has forced me to retrain my brain to zero in on the moment. When you are running around in the hospital with eight different patients and 20 things to do for each one you really learn about staying 100% in the present. If you actually planned out your entire shift and wrote down what you had to accomplish during your twelve hours you would run screaming out the front doors and just get a job at a coffee shop.
So here I sit again perched on the edge of big change...but this time? Without a plan. Don't think I have gone all buggy on you though! I have a general direction, some awesome goals, and even a wish or two - but I may finally be figuring out that I have wasted too much time and too much energy trying to control things that can't be controlled.
It's faith time people, and it feels a lot better than a five-year plan ;)
