Waiting for my real life to begin…

I’ve spent alot of time stuck in this state of mind.  Waiting.  Waiting for whatever is next.  Whether it be a job, relationship, new city, etc.  Thinking that it will be the beginning of my (so-called) real life.  But what does that really mean?  If what I’m living isn’t real, than what is it exactly?

Over the past few months, I have had more than enough time to reflect on this.  When I arrived at my parents’ house in November, I anticipated only staying through the holidays as I prepared for my extended travels.  However, as I mentioned in earlier posts, life took a different course.  Now having been here for over four months (the longest since I was 17), my perspective on life has somewhat changed.   

I have always been anxious about what’s next.  Most of my adult life has been spent frantically searching for that missing variable.  And just as I found what it was that I thought was missing, turns out, another piece disappeared.  I have looked from North to South, East to West and pretty much everywhere in between.  To no avail.

I’ve had great and not-so-great relationships, fulfilling and not-so-fulfilling jobs, ideal and not-so-ideal living environments.  Yet, something is always missing and the search continues.

What I have begun to realize and more fully understand while I have been in this “in-between” stage, is that life is what happens every single day.  My life is not on hold, as so many people have referred to it recently, just because I’m not doing what I had planned or what conventional standards imply.  There is a part of me that wishes that it were that simple.  That I could press a pause button during these times that didn’t quite fit into the picture.  And then continue on afterwards, having not lost a minute of time.  But we know that’s not how it works.  Life is the daily stuff.  And we must make the most of it each and every day.  Even if it doesn’t include much-talked-about exotic travels, at the moment.

Sometimes I feel like there will always be a missing element, but I’m no longer anxious about how and when I’ll find it.  I’ve discovered that all of the pieces necessary to make me happy are all around me. 

So, as I sit here day after day, I’m at peace knowing that I’m no longer waiting for my ship to come in…I feel I’ve already started swimming out towards it.  Remembering life waits for no one.

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”  – Henry Miller