Waiting for the other shoe to drop

As another year comes to an end and I stand at the precipice of a new year’s dawn, I can’t help but wonder where my life is headed. I don’t mean that in the context of just 2022 or the year after that but just directionally and over the long term. There is a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that life is soon going to become a waiting game. As some of the more eventful years and milestones in life are behind me, I wonder what lurks around the corner?

One could argue that there are plenty of more milestones ahead of me like my daughter graduating or starting a career or falling in love or getting married and so on. And as excited as I am to be a part of her journey and witness her rise to glory, I would be doing just that….witnessing her story unfold. If I am being honest, I’m not worried that she would soon be independent navigating the world on her terms but that she would soon stop needing me. As progressive and independent as I am, I have spent the last several years making her my life’s purpose. Who am I without her ? I dread the day I would have to find that out.

I can’t go back to being the fun loving, gregarious, effervescent girl I used to be. I somehow lost sight of her in the journey to becoming a wife and a mom. I can’t go back to being just a doting, devoted and carefree daughter since I can’t expect to be taken care of.  I’m a grown woman with a husband and a child after all. I don’t know how to go back to being just a loving wife since I didn’t get to do that for very long. It soon got mixed up with being a responsible and caring mom and the two became inseparable and one may have cannibalized the other. Therefore the ever looming dilemma of that next phase of life feels like merely waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And while it may not all be as dark and dull as the picture I paint here, I am worried I won’t have the courage or the fight in me to follow my convictions and rediscover myself. I may have gotten tired of nailing and clawing my way through life. I may have let the light in me diminish and become but a quivering flame that is on the verge of being doused. While I am grateful for all the wonderful things in my life and count my blessings everyday, the uncertain future that looms large ahead of me is a daunting reality that I am not ready to confront….at least not yet ! So in the meantime, I plan to trust the wait, embrace the uncertainty and enjoy the beauty of becoming because “When nothing is certain, anything is possible”!