It's Coming to Get Me

Life transitions are interesting. And by interesting, I mostly mean scary. And they cause me to sometimes throw up my hands in a huff. Or throw myself on the bed in (mock) despair. Or just flat out ignore them. And by that I mean, an excessive amount of time is spent watching HGTV. We've been talking a little about the next step in our lives. Someday we want to buy a house. Someday we want to have kids. And that raises a whole mess of questions. Location-wise, Finances-wise, Lifestyle-wise, Career-wise. The list goes on. Because at the moment, those Future Things don't seem to match up easily with Current Things. And I don't have answers for any of it.

We're not changing our lives tomorrow. Or even all that soon. But I have known for a while - felt for a while - that there is an imminent change approaching. And there are times I feel at peace about it. But I realized this weekend that sometimes even my "peace" about it, has been largely a "Well, this is just gonna have to get itself figured out! 'Cause I certainly can't do it! So there!!" Which is less Actual Peace and more like a game of Hot Potato.

It's interesting to realize/be reminded of just how much of a control freak I can be. Of course, you wouldn't know it to look at me. As we know, I don't remotely Have It Together. I don't have my life, my house or my desk organized within an inch of their respective lives. There is absolutely toothpaste on my bathroom mirror and here's what, it’s been there since last week. I'm in the middle of about 9 books. It takes me a full 3-6 weeks from the time I realize I need a haircut to the moment I actually call to make an appointment. For the life of him, Geoff canNOT get me to use an Inbox. I lose clothes in my closet. On a semi-weekly basis. So I'm not THAT kind of control freak. My control issues come out in stealthier ways. Ways that nearly always involve insuring that Risk is as low as possible in any given decision. Remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books? You know the ones for kids that would say, "You come to a red door hidden in the base of the building. If you open the door, turn to page 23. If you don't open it and keep going down the hill instead, turn to page 72." I would always read where both options would take me BEFORE I actually chose an option. Largely because I wanted to read the longest story I could get. But still... Walking into any big change in your life is hardly risk-free and certainly doesn’t come with any guarantees.

I know(/hope) that there are Other Things lining themselves up to be next in my life, and Those Things will cause my life to look a lot different than it looks now. And I want Those Things. I don't know a) the road that will get us there b) what kind of place it will be or c) how I will like it there. And I think I won't know 90% of those answers until we stumble upon that road. It took me two years to work up the courage to move to NYC. And I have never regretted it. And I know the same will be true of the Next Stage. Even with all its unknowns. But for the moment, we're just going with where we are. And hopefully actually learning to have peace about it until we get there. Minus the Hot Potato.