Purpose(ful)lessness

Two months since the last blog post.  A lot has been swimming around in my head, as I packed up one classroom, unsure of where I'm headed next.  Decided to drive cross-country in June.  Celebrated the annual traditions of May- my birthday and those of close friends, bachelorettes, and graduations.  All of that and opening my life up to someone new in the process.
And the 11 days that I've had of summer so far have already taught me a lot.  That I know myself now well enough to know what I need.  As a good friend put it recently, "Meg, you are surprisingly self-aware."  The to-do list that constantly scrolls in my head is never going to get done.  I'm not going to accomplish everything that I want to this summer.  But it may get shorter and I'm going to focus on relationships and spending time with people.  I'm going to practice being in the moment and enjoying being home on a cold, foggy Monday afternoon with my boyfriend watching "Girls."  Or Tuesday morning in bed with Blue Bottle coffee and my dog curled up at my feet, with the potential of the day ahead of me.  I'm not going to spend every free second I have feverishly trying to find a job and looking to see if the latest email I sent produced anything like a teaching job for next year.
I'm going to trust.  Trust that something will work out for a job, will work out in my relationships.  I am not going to let anxiety rule my life this summer.  I'm going to experience life- go to the Kabuki spa on Friday, hike Mt. Tamalpais on a weekday, and go to an art exhibit on a Thursday afternoon.  As one of my favorite authors, Shauna Niequiest wrote,

You may feel right now quite uncertain about the future, and you’re anticipating that one day, things will stop feeling so scary and foreign. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially on such a happy day, but that feeling will never come, not when you start your job or find your spouse or buy a home. That wiggly, sometimes scary feeling like anything could happen and you don’t totally know what’s next, that feeling is called life, and it would be best for you make friends with that feeling, because it will be with you for ever. It would be best as well for you to remind yourself that you’re not the only one feeling it. We tend to believe that everyone else has the answers to the most important questions, but I have it on good authority that everyone else is just as scared and uncertain as we are.