A Season is also a Door
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage- Anaïs NinLast Sunday, I sat cross-legged on the bed with my girlfriend AJ drinking ice tea and talking about life. When she mentioned how much she regrets choosing a career path of nursing (she’s a wonderful nurse by the way), I didn’t hesitate in bringing up my growing dissatisfaction with journalism and how I wish I were doing more. We went on for a while about work, laying before each other every flaw in our daily lives, every stumble on our way that has seemed to be pointing us to a different direction. In the middle of one of the most honest conversations I’ve had in a long while, I said, almost abruptly, what if this isn’t so bad as we think it is? What if our expectations have us looking at this the wrong way?Slowly but steadily, we begun to steer our talk towards hope, encouraging ourselves about the future and admitting our frustration has been birthed from the fear of never making it and for us, it’s rarely about survival but really, living a life so intentional, so full and so driven.These past six months, for me, have been characterized by an intense fear of not making it. It’s taken me so long to write this post because I’m constantly running away from having to come to terms with the reality of where I am and how I choose to live. I’ve been working at a media firm that has my expectations of what journalism should be and entail shaken. I love the part where I write a story and my name shows in the papers. I love shooting a survival documentary. But no one prepared me for the harder stuff- staying late, handling humiliation at public functions, struggling for an interview with a hundred other reporters and not having enough sleep. There’s even the harder stuff of toxic work environments and having to serve under a difficult leadership. It’s been such a rough ride (and it still is), so much that I’ve found myself counting the days till my contract expires and then what-? Find a job that is perfect? Find a boss who is emotionally receptive? Find peace of mind and more hours of rest?My haste to walk through this season is almost ridiculed by my fear of not knowing where I’m going next, and what that season holds for me. If this moment of my life is teaching me anything, it is that placing my joy and peace in a circumstance will only have moving from one place to another without ever truly gaining the experience of living each moments as it comes.Of course I want to do a job I love. Of course I want to take care of my mental and physical health. Of course I want to make impact. And of course I want to find myself in supporting spaces where my skills and talents are sharpened and brought to light. I want all the good things, all the victories. But victories only take place after a battle has been won and sometimes the fight is in stepping into a season and knowing that it isn’t always going to be great and convenient but it no doubt is leading us somewhere, taking us closer to where we want to be.I’ve been terrified of all the many changes every new opportunity presents. I worry too much about what I’m used to that I barely make room to learn, to adjust, to conquer. I worry that if I price my comfort over my growth, I’ll stay this way for a long time. But I admit I do crave growth. I desire new knowledge, new ways of doing things. Am I living if I learn nothing new? Am I truly learning if I’m unwilling to be taught by my experiences? For how long will I keep running from good and sometimes uncomfortable change? For how long will I choose to have my fear a step ahead of me while hoping to give my dreams courage?May I never become a slave to a patterned life and calculated risks. May I never be so fixated on the destination that I make meaningless the journey and all its stories. “I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.” I want more out of this life. I’ll take the stretching and the straining. I’ll take the long hours if it teaches me hard work. I’ll take the lessons if it teaches me patience. I want the courage that comes with living a life of boldness and readiness for anything the world throws at me. And at the end of this, I want to be able to look back on every small and big fight, every defeat and every victory, all the million moments in between that have shaped the woman I am, and be simply thrilled that fear didn’t win.I imagine that this season is just another door I have to walk through. And I would hate to count as loss an invitation to grow and become better. There’s as much to learn in a dark alley as a street well lit; come storm or calm, may I be brave to sail through it all.And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom - Anaïs Nin