Waiting to land

I am one of those people who knows that new year resolutions don’t have a lot of staying power, but still finds a sense of hope and inspiration and “what if I can make all the changes for all the better” each year as January 1 rolls around.

I start with an idea… or a goal… or even just a word.

I think about how that idea, goal, word connects to where I want to be.

I think about how that idea, goal, word interconnects with different aspects of my life and might play out in the year to come.

I journal about the idea, goal, word. I notice it popping it up organically in my life. I doodle it, I post about it, I sometimes even dream it.

I even sometimes do things related to it, and get around to taking action. 😉

Sometimes.

This year, however… I feel like I’m reading about what my friends are thinking about and planning and hoping to see in 2021 and instead of naturally seeing these ideas, goals, words emerge…

I got nothing.

Vague notions of discomfort, unsettledness?

Oh, I’ve got that.

But otherwise, I feel like a plane, circling around, waiting for permission or space to land somewhere.

There’s a hopefulness that’s pretty darn inherent to me, but it’s almost like right now it’s diffused into the air. Spread out like a fine mist. There’s no point of focus. It’s there, but I can’t really see it. It’s something. But honestly, it could also just be clouding my visibility.

And so I circle.

I get occasional updates from my internal crew, reminding me the unknown is okay, and that ultimately, I will be cleared to land somewhere.

But in the meantime, it feels weird and frustrating and uncomfortable.

It’s like… it’s early January.

You must be close to landing somewhere, right?

But I’m not there.

Is it because nothing changes automatically when the calendar changes from December 31 to January 1?

Or because we spent 2020 in a blurry quasi-quarantined state due to the pandemic?

Or because there’s no clear time we can anticipate things “going back to normal”?

I think it’s likely a lot of those things.

I picked up a few things we needed at Target on new year’s day.

As a mindful minimize-my-risk shopper, I tried to shop quickly and efficiently and distance myself from others. As a Target shopper does, though, I also definitely wandered around and looked at things I didn’t need.

I lingered in the office supplies, admiring fresh new 2021 paper planners. I compared them and looked at the formatting, those open hopeful blank pages.

I found one I liked, and even put it in my cart for most of the shopping excursion.

What would fill those pages?

When would I be able to plan trips?

When would our monthly dinners with friends start getting scheduled again?

Or… would they?

And before I got to the register, I put it back on the shelf.

I’ll be clear, I don’t think things are hopeless.

But I also don’t have answers.

Or a plan.

There’s so much, on a large scale, that we don’t get to control.

But I also don’t really think the answer is controlling my personal experiences and goals and ideas either.

There’s an instinct to do that.

Younger me might have done that, through diet, meditation, checking things off a list, journaling, reading, finding an accountability buddy for x, y, or z.

Sometimes I benefited from it… sometimes it made me a little neurotic.

Control can be tricky like that.

So for now, I circle.

I wait for clarity. I wait for conditions that make landing possible. I don’t push for it before I’m ready. I keep looking and anticipating and listening for direction from that internal crew.

And I trust that more will be revealed.