In the meantime…surrender and trust that what will be will be

Meantime is a state between transitions (and of expletives). At the moment, my meantimes (plural!) are making me nauseous. Three years ago I quit a full-time, fairly decently paid job for nothing. I felt like I was on a tight-rope. I had some options, but I had no idea where to land. But that was the one point, to make a conscious choice about what I wanted to do in life. Now I have much clearer idea of what I want to do and who I want to be but that doesn’t mean the evolution, the confusion stops.

I feel like I’m about to step off another cliff:

• From next week I will have finally finished my counselling classes (three years of part-time study!). End 1
• By September, I will hopefully finish client hours (and thus be finally qualified). End 2
• End of September, I will have left a job in a place I’ve been for the past 2 years. End 3
• End of September, I will be leaving Leeds (hopefully temporary) where I’ve made a home for the past 5 years and the first place I lived on my own. End 4
• Some ’relationship’ has crashed/burned/warped/something. End 5

From now till I end of September, I am in meantime space. In some weird polarising space where I’m thinking about what I want to be doing in 3 months time, and what I want to be doing when I return from my ‘sabbatical’, but having to manage how I am right now. I feel myself fighting to get through this time quicker because I’m ready for the next chapter but I also know that fighting it only makes time slower and less tolerable. As someone who is quite proactive and organised, I find this meantime space hard. I feel disorientated. Which direction to go? Oh yeah, I know, but I can’t get there just yet. It’s like being stuck on a long-haul flight. The more you watch time, the more the 12 hour flight drags.

I have to do things for a purpose. At the moment, my purpose seems ungrounded, the anchors are lost. I trained to be a counsellor to further my main purpose — to help people get to where they want to be, to help people become unstuck, build resilience and flourish. That purpose stills ring true, so why do I feel dejected? Because my efforts aren’t valued enough?

One of my key values/beliefs is ‘focus on the good and let it expand’. Focusing on the good at the moment feels challenging at the moment because I also want to focus on things that I want to grow but if my efforts aren’t appreciated, what’s the point? If I’m not there to see the fruits of my labour, what’s the point? Does that mean I’m trying to grow things for the wrong reasons? Am I expecting something in return? Am I expecting this return in a particular way only? Is it selfish to expect this?

Living in meantime means sleeping with uncertainty. So I have to focus on what’s in my control and let go of the rest. Easier said than done but still true (dammit).