Ramble Alert: This one has been kicking around in my head all week and I’m hitting publish on a very rough first draft. Hopefully I’ll come back to edit it, but I didn’t want to miss the moment. Good luck!
And then suddenly, a weird and sort of wonderful calm came over the process.
After nearly a year of pushing, thinking, pondering, considering, planning which started last January and picked up speed in April; after a Summer of imagining and envisioning; and then a super intense Fall dedicated to purging, fixing, painting and coordinating followed by an equally demanding season of communicating and, suddenly, negotiating. And just like that we’ve woken up to the middle of January and found that there’s nothing more we can do, but wait and be. It’s officially the season of Betwixt & Between – and it’s really strange, mostly pleasant, but nevertheless a little disorienting after all the frenzied, intentional, anti-inertia energy we’ve been investing in this journey for the past 12 months.
This pause in the action poses it’s own challenges. There’s a great deal of relief in no longer being so very, somewhat terribly, “in charge” of this whole endeavor. It’s also undeniably a gift of time, which I’m determined to make the most of, before the countdown clock begins again “for reels”. When it does, there will be no turning back. The clock will be ticking toward the end of a chapter that we have loved as we start one that we hope will be even better, but is rife with unknowns (both scary and exciting). It’s very easy to complain about this strange interlude in the action, because it is such a time of waiting – and we tend to be impatient, us humans. We like to complain about all that we must do, and then just as quickly we find ourselves tempted to (and falling to temptation) complain when there’s nothing we can do. Funny, eh?
Above all, I think this in between time is something very special and rare, which we must try very, very hard to savor… even if it’s hard to really, truly, totally enjoy. When I think about all the months, years and countless hours I spent contemplating how to move on to the next chapter and I remember how hard it was to get things rolling… I am really grateful for the fact that we’re now definitely on the “other side” where the train has absolutely left the station and is rolling along on it’s own, at it’s own pace, and we’re now just passengers looking out the window – wondering when we’ll get there, but with no influence whatsoever on the engine or the timetable.
One of our favorite quotes here at Maven & Magpie comes from a chief that Bobby knew in his Navy days… this guy made such an impression on Bobby that I feel like I was there for the lecture (even though it happened years before we met). The message of this Chief was one single truth: You Always Have Choice. I absolutely love this phrase and it is a truth I rely upon often in situations big and small. Today, it’s particularly true, as we have a choice about how we handle this sure-to-be-brief time when there’s nothing required of us and there’s nothing we can do to change the timing of our process. We can choose to wring our hands and be anxious or we can choose to simply BE. Be present. Be appreciative. Be grateful. Be patient. Be certain. Be hopeful. Be peaceful. Be aware. Be mindful. Be open. I suppose these are all things we can always be… but it’s suddenly much easier when there’s not some all-consuming other project to hide in (well, of course there ARE projects, but not as compelling as the imminent moving project).
It’s time to enjoy all the little things – not knowing quite when they will all end, but knowing they won’t be ours to enjoy forever. I am trying to very intentionally choose to focus on being “in” this time of in-between (in fact that was my intention at yoga tonight).. but I have to admit that’s easier said than done. I know for certain that I’ll look back and this “half-in, half-out” time will be teeny tiny blip on the timeline of our journey. Much like a first day at a new job, it’s a fragile, brief, mildly uncomfortable and uniquely weird time…. for me this time is bittersweet but also sort of dream-like and hazy. I’m doing my best to cherish it and to explore how much of it we can rekindle when we’re on the other side of this transition, as a talisman to protect us from the always compelling and often all consuming pull of forward motion… which will have us back in the conductors seat in no time.
