Answers

I would like to beg you, as well as I can, to have patience, Rilke said, with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

I would like to draw your attention to this post today by Jen Lemen of Shutter Sisters.

I am still not ready to talk about what has happened to me this past month, but suffice it to say that my twisted story has left me emotionally exhausted. Life is bizarre. It must be said, though, that I am amazed how things tend to line up for me in the most unexpected ways.

My move to Boston was, to some, a split-minute decision. I had been disappointed that I didn't get to go away for college and had been hoping to eventually move somewhere new and see the world. So, when the opportunity came, I jumped. The week before I got here I had no job, no apartment and no plan. I was leaving my home and my loved ones for the first time in my life. My kitties were having a melt down. I was having a meltdown.

Slowly, my tangled mess of a life started to work itself out. The landlord whom I was negotiating with decided that I wasn't a total bum after all and really didn't need to pay him 6 months rent up front. The apartment ended up being $100 cheaper than I had anticipated. I landed a phone interview with a company mere days before I left Reno, and I got a face-to-face interview lined up for the very same day that I would be arriving into town. I got the job (and a $15,000 a year raise). I got to take two whole months of vacation without worry.

As I have watched my life implode around me these past few weeks, I need to remind myself that sometimes one must empty one's cup so that it may become full. That if I am quiet and centered and concentrate on just being in the moment, I do not have to have all of the answers right away, that they will come, often to my surprise (and delight). That sometimes the anticipation of an outcome is just as sweet as the outcome itself.

And so, my friends, my hope for you today is that you can stay centered, appreciate the looming unknown for what it is and laugh those deep belly laughs that rock you to your core. Our experiences in life truly are gifts, even when they come in strange packages.