stop acting like you know

Graduating college is very similar, I would assume, to getting married or having a baby, in the sense that you have a good indicator what all these large milestones in life will supposedly entail. Yet, you never truly know or understand what they are until you are in the thick of them.

I left college knowing it would be change, difference, and newness. I knew that my rhythm of life would adjust to a new normal. And I knew how this season looked from my head's perspective.

It's striking how big milestones and changes can reflect our humanness, like very few others can. We think we know, and then the change actually happens. 

A month post-graduation, I know that what I knew was very little like what I know now. 

The application process is both life-sucking and depressing. Its hard to keep laying yourself out on the track, each time hoping that the train will slow down and not crush you and a little part of your soul as it runs full steam ahead. Motivation runs dry very quickly and its much easier to clean out the years of stuff you've stored under your bed, than write cover letters that you know will return a "thanks, but no thanks" response. Or even worse, no response. 

I've noticed people asking me the "are you busy" question a lot more often. Not necessarily because its being asked of me more, but because I'd actually LIKE to be busy. No job, no school, and a cleaned out bed make for a boring set of 24 hours. It isn't a problem that they ask, it just makes a neon sign in my head of this slow-paced season and its turtle-like qualities. 

But the biggest thing I've realized in the beginning parts of this season:

This is the first time in my life that I don't truly have a plan. When I graduated from high school, I knew I was headed to college. Sure I didn't know what the heck I had gotten myself into, but I knew the general gist of things. When uncertainty started to crowd in, I could at least rely on an acceptance letter and what it implicated. 

This time around, the idea of a "career" isn't enough to call a plan. The variables are large and sometimes can cast big shadows onto the future. 

The other night my dear friend said, five years ago we thought you'd be married and settled, but "You have the world at your feet. Its so exciting." 

And it SO is. But having the world at your feet can be deeply unnerving. The world implicates many options with wide parameters. So many possible choices. 

I often half-heartedly joke that i'll take the first job that will pay me, but I also want to truly know that I have made the right choice. I don't want to pry open or slip through cracked doors. I know to the depths of my soul that the Lord opens doors, and I only want to run through those swung wide open. But this season makes for a lot of uncertainty when it comes to knocking on what seems like an endless slew of doors (kind of like Hilbert's Infinite Hotel). 

I thought I knew what this season and change would hold, but daily as I sift through more applications and stare out the window; I am reminded that I know nothing. 

One day, I'm sure I'll read this post as a girl who's too busy once again with a career she's living and say "Silly girl, you had no idea." But here's the paradox, that same girl will be uncertain of other things and she'll be waiting on a different unknown. 

So that's all to say, I should stop acting like I know and soak up what the Lord has to teach me in this season. Easier said than done, of course, but worth it just the same. 

Because life is built of seasons unknown, and by grace we survive.