You don’t have to have all the answers today.
Well, that’s a *&^%$%^ relief, isn’t it? Because I certainly don’t have all the answers. Today.
It’s okay to not know right now.
Which is good. Because I do not know. So much. Right now.
Last week I had one of those weeks. One of those, please help me Mom, because I think I might be having some kind of attack here, weeks. I am fortunate that my mother understands my particular type of obsessive anxiety that results in compulsive behavior. And she’s able to help me. Which is interesting because I understand my daughter’s brand of anxiety. Which isn’t necessarily the same type as mine. But I know how to talk her down. Off the ledge of uncertainty and give her a glimmer of hope that she’s going to succeed. Maybe it’s a mother / daughter thing. Sometimes you just need to be told “everything’s going to be alright.”
I was reminded last week of the above mentioned statement…..it’s okay to not know right now. So many thoughts. Ideas. Hopes. Questions. Next year’s health insurance….which is probably the least glamorous of the questions. Finances. Blah…blah…blah.
Who…what…where….when…all but the why. I guess I already know the why. Why = life. Just because I’m alive. But the rest. I don’t know. Today.
Like a game of Clue. I could venture to guess. Professor Plum with the…..
I looked a young lady in the face today and told her….”you don’t have to know today.” She’s, I’m not sure, 22 years old I think. And like my daughter, she’s an over achiever. A planner to the nth degree. Wants to know what to expect, when. Where to be, what to do. Which is good. Really it is. Because those are the people who get a lot done and make things happen and they care. About whatever they’re doing. Whoever they’re advocating for. And although she will soon have to come to some decisions, she doesn’t have to know at this very moment, now.
I find myself to be less and less of a planner. As I age. As I see that the future could be a myriad of things. And the best laid plans…. I’d rather just let it be. Let it be. Let it be. But that is so absolutely, terribly hard. For me.
I try not to think too much. Which is, well, an impossibility for me. Because I think constantly. Doesn’t everyone? Maybe not…
I recently put out some of my autumn home decorations. And that unnerves me a bit. Because when they come down, the Christmas stuff goes up. Then when Christmas is packed up, I have a few winter items I like to set out. Then. Well, then. It will be spring. It will be spring before my house looks exactly like it did before. And despite my lack of the desire to plan, I have set up a few guidelines inside my head telling me that by spring I had better……
But maybe it will be okay to not know then? Actually I don’t think it will. I think by then I will know. Something. More than today. Which is good and somewhat settling. As opposed to unsettling which is not good.
But today. It’s alright not to know today. It’s okay not to know right now. Which is what I wrote in a card and mailed to my daughter yesterday. Because I suppose, like me, I figured she needed to hear it.
Sometimes I get so tired of the voices, real voices and those in my head saying, over and over…. “what’s the plan…? what time….? where are we going….? when…..? who is coming…..?”
But, at the same time, I get so tired of not knowing. Of it all being up in the air.
Certainty is a luxury I can rarely afford.
Upon a Sunny Day 