Finding Grace in Transition
Have you ever felt like time was running out? There’s so much to do and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time to do it in. 24 hr days are not enough. There doesn’t seem to be enough time to reach your goals or do the things you want. Ever since high school life has felt like it’s on a timer, and eventually that time will be up. In the meantime I’ve had this feeling that I’ve lived in a loop of almosts and maybes. My goals haven’t been met and there’s been this feeling, I’m going to run out of time. When I left high school I didn’t have an idea for my life and it seemed like everyone else did. I’ve learned to reframe my thinking, my life is not supposed to look like everyone else’s. There is no frame I need to follow, I’m not living to please anyone. For a time though, I felt like I was disappointing everyone. If not everyone, I was definitely disappointing myself. In 2022 I was out of a job. I had lost a job I loved and the next best thing available was at a school as a teacher’s assistant. My only experience with kids was on Sundays for an hour, I was a volunteer. So I thought, “I do this on a weekly basis. How hard could it be?” I quickly found out.
I think all of us have felt pressured at some point in one way or another. Whether it be pressure from our families or even pressure we place on ourselves, there somehow seems to be this unnecessary weight on our shoulders. From all corners we can hear someone say “When are you going to do this? When are you going to do that?” Or, “you need to do this. You need to do that.” However, I don’t think they realize the pressure that can come from those questions. When I was working at the school I had family members who were upset that I didn’t finish college and I saw it on their faces every time I saw them. I thought to myself, “but what I’m doing now is better than not doing anything at all.” I felt like nobody saw me, I was doing life as I understood it. I felt that taking college courses without direction was a waste of resources on my part. I didn’t know what I wanted, why waste my time. While I was working at this job, I was pressured and was pressured on every corner. I questioned my self worth, got into arguments with family members. The only one helping me keep my head afloat was my then boyfriend now husband. I felt ashamed of myself, this was not the place I ever wanted to be. During lunchtime I would sit with him and cry because I wanted to get out of the situation I was in. The only thing he could offer me was comfort, and I was so overwhelmed that in itself didn’t seem to be enough for me. I can’t even pinpoint exactly why I was ashamed, because it wasn’t the kids I worked with. It was the situation I found myself in. I thought, “what could I possibly have to learn in this season of my life?” I expected more out of myself. I worked at a job that I had to pay to get there- basically I worked to go to work. Everyday it was a fight with my self worth, I felt this intense pressure that I was disappointing everyone. Here I was thinking that I could step out on my own and just work any normal job, but the job I found was 40 minutes away and I had to take a Lyft to get there. “I can only imagine what everyone is saying about me,” I would think to myself. There was an insane amount of pressure because it felt like I was going in circles. I would go to work and be depressed because I felt all eyes were on me. I said I could get a regular job and I wasn’t proving it. I was a failure.
The truth is I was being hard on myself. Where I was in my life was where everyone has been once before, in the valley. I was so desperate to move past that part of my life because I felt too good to be there, I was above that sort of thing. I fought myself everyday trying to remember everything was going to be fine, this was going to pass. I had to reframe my situation and reframe my own expectations. Something I had to do was reframe my situation. I knew this job was not where I wanted to be, but it was where I was so I had to make the most of it. I would have to find a way to give myself grace, so I would say something like “I know you’re having a hard time getting through this job, but this is only temporary. Something better is going to come.” To reframe my expectations I didn’t lower them I just chose to view them differently, “I’m not where I want to be, but I’m somewhere and moving forward.”
Not everyone might be where they want to be in their lives, but they don’t stay there. To get out of the mindset that I was in, I had to talk myself out of it. I had to slow down. My mind was running at 100 mph with doubts, fear and negative thoughts that I thought was coming from my family and those around me. In reality it was coming from my end. Something I’ve come to appreciate is everyone’s season in life. I think it’s a beautiful thing to see them bloom in whatever season they might find themselves in. I’ve learned to appreciate and take in the new seasons I find myself in, everyday is a new day why not take it in, bask in it for a while. Slowing down can be a very challenging thing, especially in the society we’re living in. Everything is fast paced. Trends change, situations shift, it’s hard to keep track of it all. We forget there’s no need to hurry. It’s a hard thing, keeping up with society. Don’t compare your journey to theirs.
2022, though a hard season, it was rewarding. It taught me that you can’t measure your success by what you do or where you are but by how you learn to get through it. How you speak to yourself in the valley makes it harder or easier to go through. Slowing down means even if you’re in one of the harder seasons of your life, like I was, stop, take a breath and give yourself grace, it’s only temporary . One day you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come.
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