In just a couple weeks, I will be leaving Phnom Penh and headed back to the States. This is a new season of my life and I’m feeling the flood of emotions that come with a new season. I find myself going to the things that I know work for me to stay centered and not spin out of control emotionally. Some good things come to an end, and this was really great. I think this experience did what it was supposed to do in my life. It changed the parts of me that I needed to improve on and I’m really happy with the experience that I’ve had here.
I’m in this spot of in-between. I don’t really know what’s happening next and I feel myself questioning these things that I had thought I always wanted and wanted to do and I know that it’s not anymore. Some part of me feels like I am being held to expectations because of things I was heading towards before moving here. The question I get the most and I hate the most is, “what’s next?”.
I listen to a lot of podcasts and the one that I have listened to at least 7 times is “Seasons” by Rob Bell on RobCast. He summarizes the feelings I have right now about the question “what’s next?” better than I can. To sum it up, right now I need to grieve the loss of this before I can fully concentrate on what happens on 15 September. I know that we are built to have a new beginning when something ends, but it is totally, incredibly okay to not. I want to cherish these last moments in a place I have grown to love, and I don’t want to live in a future that I can’t predict. (But go download the podcast and listen; I feel as though everyone can learn from it.)
There are some projects I have in the air, and I’ve been looking for jobs (I have even lined up a job interview), and that kind of thing. I’ve saved enough money to go a couple months while all that happens. I want to be open to opportunities, because now I am limitless. That’s a very scary and liberating feeling. And I’m much more confident in myself and my skills and my dreams, that I don’t feel the need to settle on something just to make money. I don’t have to find a job that I’d be happy enough with, to live out the rest of my life. I’m finding something that I can do while I hustle for the next BIG dream I want to accomplish. Dreams don’t seem so distant anymore, now that I’ve accomplished this.
Basically, please back off the “what’s next?” question. Not just for me, but for everyone who is experiencing that transitional season, that time in-between an ending and a beginning. The fear, anxiety, thrill, excitement, and uneasy of that season is enough to think about. Give people that time to take care of themselves. A lot of people ask that question because it makes them feel better about your situation; they are satisfying their own curiosity. You, or I in this case, don’t have to worry about what happens next. Grieve, dream, and then act.