"Anytime you're gonna grow, you're gonna lose something. You're losing what you're hanging onto to keep safe. You're losing habits that you're comfortable with, you're losing familiarity." - James Hillman.
Sometimes I just need quiet days. Days where I am happy to sit in silence to reflect on where I am at. I don't feel the need to speak all the time. Solitude and quiet is honestly the most soothing thing for me.
It was in those moments of solitude that I came to understand that in the midst of this uncertain period of life, I am nursing loss. I lose my job in a few days. I said goodbye to people I loved. I gave up my home. All my stuff is in storage. I don't have my garden to sit in with Milo and think. I have no familiar routine. It's a loss that feels difficult and selfish to talk about or admit because I still have so much more in life than countless others, but it has been hard.
I try and keep my eyes on the future and that does allow me to feel some level of excitement for a new chapter. As nerve-wracking as newness is, it is also pretty exciting. I remind myself that I get to start over completely at 30 (which I will turn in November) and that is really great! Then comes the heart-pounding anxiety around all those things. Starting again at 30?! Do I really want to do this again? When do I get to stop "giving up" things? When can I be stable?
Our anniversary of moving to the United States is in a few days and for the last few weeks I have only been applying to jobs in the UK. I feel no level of attachment to stay here anymore. Ten years of energy has been expended, I think. There's a sense of demoralization that comes from work and visa issues that has made me feel that no matter how hard I try, it's not enough. Maybe I will be enough where I originally was. Perhaps sometimes you have to go back to move forward. Maybe I was supposed to come here to learn, to listen, to become another version of myself, and then bring it back home. I am okay now with that being the potential "end" to this chapter.
However, I am so eager to know what's next. I have been a crappier version of myself lately, all impatience and frustration. I am 100% ready to leave this in-between and head to my next destination! I am a focus-based person and having nothing to look forward to or focus on is driving me nuts.
Growing pains are hard and I loved the quote at the beginning of this post because I think it sums up what so many of us are afraid to admit in times of change -- that we feel loss. Not just loss of physical things, but a loss of ourselves and who we were in that chapter. When I locked my door in Martin, Tennessee on May 19, I knew I was never going back. That was a loss. I locked the door on good and bad. I locked the door on the home I brought sick little Milo to. I locked the door on the times where I would cry alone over my visa. I locked the door on my first snowstorm, on dinners with friends, on that one snake (eek!), and so much more.
Growing pains are hard and if you are going through them now, I am with you. Trust me, I know. But, I have often found (in my life, at least) that hard times usually culminate in it all working out and me going, "Wow, Aimee. You were so worried and dramatic for nothing." I usually get tests from the universe in that nothing comes easily, but it does come. It does come.
I am going to sound like a "hippy dippy" now I am sure but it reminds me of this time in Martin where we had such a horrendous thunderstorm. I don't like thunderstorms, particularly when I live alone, and I was literally watching the radar to see when we'd be clear. Once the hellish storm was done, I went to let Milo out. Branches were strewn everywhere and you could see that a rough time had been encountered not long ago.
BUT
The sky was a glorious purple color and the world was quiet apart from a few birds who had gone back to their beautiful singing. I remember thinking at that time, "If we hadn't have had that storm, I wouldn't have gotten to experience this magic." So, note to self (and you) -- thunderstorms and life uncertainty are awful and we never want them, but they may just bring magic later.
The purple sky was worth the storm and I am equally hopeful that this time of my life will be worth this storm.
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