Surrender (but don’t give yourself away...)

“Just surrender and trust the Universe.”

“Everything that is meant for you will be yours, and you won’t have to struggle so hard for it.”

“Get very clear on what you want and the Universe will have no choice but to give it to you.”

On the surface it sounds like total wishy-washy bullshit, basically encouraging people to skate through life because everything that’s “meant to be” will simply fall into their laps with very little effort. Which, to be fair, a lot of people take that interpretation and because ignorance is bliss, end up doing pretty well for themselves. Alternatively, on the end of the spectrum where people’s heads and assholes have a fair distance between them, there is- or should be- a slightly deeper understanding of this message. A message that I’ve heard only a bazillion times but can only seem to truly grasp and internalize about 57% of them (that is a technical statistic). The message is, essentially, do the work and then let it go.

For the first time in a long time, I am in limbo. I have done the work, a lot of work, many kinds of work, and have come to a point in my life where I have arguably too many options and honestly, not one of them seems definitively better than the other. I use the term “better” meaning, there’s no one option that will for absolute certain make me happier or more comfortable because they each have their perks and their downsides. For instance, one offers financial stability (big fan, love that) in a field that I love, but requires a fair amount of personal sacrifice due to the hours required to do the job. Another option is less financially stable and requires more hustle, but because I’d essentially be a freelance human being, I would be granted more freedom in lieu of stability.

ON THE OTHER HAND, financial stability grants me another level of freedom that wouldn’t otherwise be available to me...but on the other other hand, what good is the money if I don’t have the physical freedom to do the things that make my life worth living?

I’ve been in my childhood home visiting my parents for over a week now, ruminating on life and all the things that have happened this summer, and trying to figure out what they mean for my future. I’m approaching 10 years living in a city that I truly love, but the mid-twenty something that moved there was a very different girl with very different priorities than the mid-thirty something scribing her thoughts haphazardly on an iPhone in her pajamas in her parents’ guest room. My priorities have changed, A LOT. Which I’m glad for, I’d be very sad for me if my biggest priorities were still which bar I was going to every night and which of my friends’ bands were coming to town next so we could party our faces off. Now it’s more like, what moves can I make that will give me a lifestyle upgrade that indulges what I deem to be more comfortable and satisfying? What can I do to lessen the struggle, whatever I define “struggle” to be? Where can I find more like-minded people in a place that feels like home? How can I listen to my head and my heart at the same time, and not end up alone with 14 cats for the rest of my days?

It’s been a big summer for me, a big year in general. I’m 33 years old, 33 is a master number symbolizing “guidance” and that “all things are possible.” It is a number of the Ascended Masters sending the message that they’ve got your back. Under this belief, I suppose I could attribute the events this year up to this point- especially this summer- as guidance. There have definitely been some things that have happened that prove “all things are possible,” for better or for worse. I keep trying to find a definitive answer, something that’s going to tell me exactly what to do or what choice to make or how things are going to play out. For as much as I do enjoy spontenaity to a certain degree, like “let’s see where the night takes us!” on a Saturday evening, for the most part I’m a planner and I like to know what’s up ahead. Right now, all I see is a fork in the road, in the woods, on a foggy night- I can’t see shit. And much like someone who might actually find themselves in such a situation, I’m beginning to understand that there truly is only one thing I can do- surrender. I can surrender and wait for some part of the fog to clear and point me down one part of the path or the other. The fog is out of my hands- I can not control it,  I cannot lift it, and I’m not about to barrel through it blindly without a little more information as to what lies ahead. I know that all paths ultimately lead to the same final destination- a destination I know exists because I have been very clear about it for as long as I can remember; I just need some guidance on how I am to get there. So I wait. I keep myself busy and I do what I can with what I’ve got and I wait for the fog to lift and for something to illuminate my path. I wait and I wait and I wait. I don’t want to be impatient and start a fight I’m not sure I want to finish. I need more information, more guidance, more light. So I wait. 

I surrender.