I remember, at 14, sitting in my childhood bedroom, crying to the point of giving myself a panic attack, because a boy did not text me back. And I remember, at 24, on the floor of the toilet of my corporate office, crying to the point of having to take a sick day, because a boy was not sure about the next steps in our relationship. Or leaving a job that I did not like for years but being filled with second thoughts about my choice. Or breaking up with someone I knew in my bones was not my person and still wondering if I should give one more chance. All in the name of avoiding change, of staying in the comfortable and the familiar.
You could safely say, I have been running from uncertainty, from the spaces in between that, more often than not, accompany changes, from new beginnings and starting over. This avoidance represented in me a desire to be safe, to remain in a cocoon where no harm could find me, hypothetically. And in a sense, that was the harm. Sometimes we just keep choosing the familiar type of hurt.
So naturally, this past year came as a strict teacher, one you only start to appreciate after you finish school, to teach me to embrace the unknown. And it turns out, the thing I’ve always avoided, is the thing that brought me the most magic. This space where anything can happen if we only trust in what we most believe in. God, ourselves, the universe, whatever you want to call it.
In the midst of all the changes and uncertainty I cried a lot, I doubted my choices, even who I was, everything. But I found faith more than ever, and I trusted in life, inevitably, as there was no choice left. But how can you trust when you’re in doubt? I often find opposing feelings get comfy with each other: move in the room of the heart together, and can even coexist harmoniously, like old friends.
What changed then? I changed jobs a lot, and apparently not enough. Through all of this I had a knowing in my body that I needed to do something more that writing reports all day. This kind of change seems too big to tackle sometimes, and even just thinking about it still gives me a chill. But could I? Isn’t it too crazy to change careers now, to study again, to give up this successful corporate career that sounds so good on the outside? I am still searching for the courage and finding it only in the smallest of steps. In taking a class I like, in simply allowing myself to daydream about the possibility, in wondering which one of the scary scenarios I should choose. Because staying the same and changing are both scary.
Another big change that made feel in a way that I can only describe as scared shitless (lol) was moving. I lived in my previous house for 6 years. A house in which I first moved with my ex, and for the longest time complained about but never took the leap to leave. Ironically, by the time I left, I loved the house with all my heart. I had made it my own, and having spent my early twenties there, I felt that in many ways, the house had raised me. It broke my heart to say goodbye to it and it still does, even thought it was necessary.
I cannot stress enough the mundanity of those changes; most people have or will go through them. And how on the contrary, I have seen people around me, friends and family, go through things that are far from ordinary, bordering tragic, highlighting to me the resilience of the human nature and the tendency of life to just flow onwards, not waiting for anything or anyone. Reminding us that what we go through and what we thought we needed to go through are two sides of the same coin. That there will not be one prevailing feeling but co existing contradictions while going through it. And a bittersweet taste. That if this was a movie, the soundtrack is a sad song and a happy song looped on top of one another. You get to hear what you focus on. And that we are multidimensional, which is tragic and beautiful in its own way, never whole but endlessly growing.
When I found myself deep in uncertainty, not knowing how to embrace it, to just be there, I felt like drowning. It was all consuming and it enveloped my being in this stickiness that makes next steps too dreadful.
What I came to know in the drowning is that life moves on. Whether you want to move on with it or dwell in what’s lost, the reality is that what is ahead is a gift to you. What I am sure of is that no matter what, tomorrow birds will sing, doggies will run on the grass, kids will go to school, and you will feel the breeze on your skin. If only you dare to.
To embrace the change, the unknown, the uncertainty, we have to be rooted in ourselves. To cast the anchor of who we are within rather than without. To stop looking for safety in others or in all things outside of us but find it, even in fractions, in our mind and heart and practices.
Thank God I took the leaps, even scared (shitless). Thank God life had a plan better than mine, thank God not everything happened when I was so desperate for it, as this was a pretty good indicator that I was not ready for it. The same experience time and time again, of things being better when I let go of control, even when it is the difficult choice to make, has created in me a newfound sense of faith, so extreme it exists beyond my capacity to describe it.
What is it that made you run towards what you’ve been running away from? For me it was love.
This is SO. STUNNING. I have way too many favourite parts to lists, too many lines that made me sigh. These words I was meant to read today. Thank you so much for sharing, you’re a wonderful writer!! ☁️
Dear Nadia, this was so beautiful to read! I loved the journey you took us on through different stages of your life – it made me feel that in remembering who you were before, you also remember who to be today, and why.
Reading what you wrote reminded me of this quote from Anais Nin that has always inspired me on my own journey of becoming – “and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
I love your tribute to the house that raised you – it is so moving. I’ve always felt that we connect with places we’ve been, in much the same way as we connect with people we meet.
And your question at the end about what makes me run towards what I run away from really got me to reflect. I think for me, it is finding the sense of home and peace within me that can only come from living in a way that makes me feel truly alive.
Thank you for sharing your words and heart with us, and I’m looking forward to reading more about your journey of remembering, where you invite us to remember too <3 <3