Waiting on Calm Waters

Why does time move so fast? I've been 30 for over 2 months and there are only 3 weeks left of the Fall Quarter for my students. I'm still trying to figure out my job and we still have one of our rooms filled with things to make our living space feel like home, but they remain hidden away. There are so many things that feel undone and so much that has happened and I can't really figure out my place in it or how to get grounded.

Here's the thing, for the first time in years, things can finally settle down. I've been tossed around at the mercy of my environment like agitated silt in the bottom of a pond. That's not to say I haven't been trying to peacefully find my way to the bottom of the water once more. It's that I am realizing settling takes time and patience waiting for the water to find its calm once more and murky water to become clear as density works its course.

Even in this new place, I am finding that my environment has remained more chaotic than I had imagined. The waters continue to churn. The silt continues to flurry beneath the surface.

And as I swirl around in the middle of it, I understand.

Maybe I have found where I should be for this season. Maybe there are lots of certainties in areas that had previously been filled with question marks. Maybe there is the thrill of new places to explore and unknown adventures ahead. Maybe there are opportunities to learn and grow and be challenged in ways that I have never experienced before.

There are other things within me that had been pushed aside for a few years in order to simply keep treading the tumultuous waters. With (at least some) assurance of my home, my job, my location, I find those things making a resurgence.

It has been a long time since I have felt the pressure of my perfectionsism and people pleasing and fear of failure significantly affecting the way that I live and relate and work and play. Yet, here it is, in full force.

And it is exhausting.

I forgot how powerful those pressures can be. I sincerely thought I had been managing them better. For the first couple of months in my job, I didn't know what was happening and blamed it on other things. As of the last couple of weeks, I started to get it.

The patterns that had helped me to make it through the past few years won't help the waters to calm, but that is how I have been operating. It isn't working, but why?

Why?

Now is the time for letting go. I have to face what is in my heart, the fears and the brokenness. I need to call them what they are and make space for new patterns that challenge me to face reality and to grow.

I have been the one agitating the water and I want to stop. Just as it takes work to tread, it takes work to calmly float. Floating is the kind of work that needs to be done. Gently enjoying the refreshing of the water while allowing the silt to settle beneath me. Grounded.

With deep breaths and quiet spaces. With an open heart and humble listening ears. I stop. I wait. I be.

What better calm than to be the fullness of what the Creator had in mind.