The Unexpected Normalcy of Living

There is this thing that happens when life changes suddenly. For a while everything is chaos. All you think about is where you have been and how you got here, and every present moment just seems to be a moment of transition. Your life past isn't here, but your life future is still to come. The mindset of transition colors every idea, thought, and emotion. 

There is this thing that happens when life changes suddenly. 

It turns out that it is hard to get used to peace when you have lived in chaos. 

I lived in chaos. The lives of the kids I cared for were chaotic. My significant other was chaotic. Our life together was chaotic. And when everything blew up, the chaos seemed to reverberate in my eardrums and my vision became jarred with flashbacks. Because I was still stuck in the chaos. 

Even in peace, I didn't know what it looked like to live without the constant barrage of everything constantly being one tiny step from completely falling apart.

But eventually, all of a sudden, as you are doing something normal like buying olive oil at the grocery store or getting dressed for work, you realize that you aren't actually in transition anymore after that sudden life changing event. You realize, almost as if you can see yourself from somewhere else, that what you are doing every day isn't waiting. 

Its living. 

The job you have, the place you live, the life you lead, it isn't "the meantime," its life.  Without even recognizing it, you somehow came into your new normal and stopped living in the transition. 

It feels a little weird when you realize it. Shouldn't there have been some big book that slammed closed? Shouldn't there have been a fork in the road and the physical movement of turning in a different direction? Shouldn't I have stood at the top of a mountain and raised a flag for the new era? 

I think for a long while I was consumed by timelines- timelines of how long it had been, or when I moved, or when I got a job- and I thought I was waiting for something. But instead it turns out that my life has been moving and I have been living my life as it is and will be.

As I consider this I realize something. 

I want to be joyful with the life I have. I want to live it fully. I want to be present and stop waiting for whatever I think this is supposed to lead me to. 

My life is in my hands. 
I am living it day in and day out. 

And honestly, it isn't half bad.