repurposing uncertainty

sitting with the in-between

good morning, little wonder,

how is your heart feeling?

whether thanks to the insightful algorithm gods, commiserating friends, or more likely, because we are many ants scattered few and far between on this picnic hill, experiencing the same breeze, it’s almost every day now that I hear my same worries echoed in someone else’s voice.

I feel like my life is starting a new season, but it’s going on without me

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

How can I plan for the future when I’m not sure what that looks like?

I feel like I fell off the plot.

maybe you have felt this way for a while, or just starting to feel the air shift, but something has made you feel separated—far off the trail from where you were last. or, in the case of a few friends, you’ve arrived at something (a job, a new art project, city, or relationship) that was once what you wanted, but now doesn’t seem like the right fit. it hangs loosely around your edges and you’re worried about starting over. it’s okay. please don’t believe your life is losing its shape just because it’s hard to see what happens after this. you are still at the helm. this life of wet clay is still yours to sculpt by the day.

for one, there was no way to predict what change these last few years—a pandemic—would bring, nor could we have pictured what the time spent recuperating from it would look like. (all personal difficulties aside, the collective flux to our everyday lives, combined with an acute grief at the loss of life and structure, at its baseline is enough to command a recovery period.) we pictured safety, a sense of control. the end of our teenage years, twenties, or thirties; graduation, a family reunion, or a summer abroad. the wedding ceremony, the concert, the surgery, a move; a first hello or last goodbye. 

it’s okay. if for right now, you don’t know what comes next, it’s okay.
you’re not without company, either. there’s not a week I’m able to go without mentioning out loud, how it feels as if we’ve been suspended in air, hovering just a few inches above the ground for such a long time now. reaching out, kicking our feet, trying to touch land again.

that uncertainty, that unknown, does feel terrifying. it has been exactly this, what we can’t see ahead, that scares us. those slimed, slick reeds at the bottom of the lake; the great expanse of outer space left uncharted. but that void of knowing can also be an empty room to bounce ideas off of, an all-purpose tool, a vista to rest before the next switchback, or freedom. an unmarked calendar lends itself to be a canvas. a blank, steady stream of trial time to reinvent, a counterpart in a conversation to yourself. what have you wanted to do? if you have in mind a happiest version of yourself, what do they do differently?

I understand the rush to draw up new plans, even the sense of panic, that having this time for your own deciding isn’t as much of a comfort as you’d like it to be. but what if you were to start small? what if you were to rest? what if you were to experiment in trying something new, only to look up and find there was an untouched trail for you to walk, just buried behind the blackberry bushes?

even more so, I hope that you’re enjoying, or at the very least, taking care in this pause instead of rushing into what waits on the other side. it’s not that “I’m 28 and don’t know where to go next,” but also, “I’m 28 and happy with how I make decisions now. my greatest joy is making my best friend laugh. I’m finding I like to be strong. I don’t know where I’ll go next, but I need to explore in order to catch sight of it. with time, that feels daunting.”

maybe this is nothing I haven’t said before, but I think it bears purpose in repeating. this will be okay. your life is still yours. we can appreciate and grieve losing time or experiences that can never come back from sea, but also know that what we have to work with is worthwhile. it may be different. it doesn’t have to be anything you started with. but it will be yours and you’ll hold it with a deeper pride, with careful, cherishing hands because you brought it into existence. I want that for us. I want to see what we can do with it.

all the while, I’ll be rooting you on.

with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
venmo: schuylerpeck