my life isn't a waiting room
I can’t tell you how many times I was told to “wait well” in my 20s without any clue as to what that actually meant. I spent the majority of this decade inside church walls, and while I have no resentment with the church as a whole, I do think that the people whose advice I took really set me on a side quest that took years to come back from. As I watched the people around me date, get married, and start families, I began to feel isolated and broken. Obviously, everyone cracked the code to something that I was clearly not understanding. So I did what any twenty- something does: I internalized it.
I subconsciously taught myself that the good in my life was tucked away somewhere in the future.
For five years (the latter part of my 20s), I went through the motions without really thinking much beyond the week in front me. I had jobs that burned me out and kept me broke. I remember there was one time I visited a friend’s home in a nice neighborhood of LA and her Spotify was playing on the TV. to this day, I’m not sure why this exact moment stirred a strong response that I remember almost a decade later. Envy and awe filled my mind. I can never have this, I’d thought. And I sincerely believed it. At the time, I had no timeline for moving out of my parents’ home so by default, I felt unworthy to date because I wasn’t independent. But that feeling followed me in all aspects of my life, and unfortunately that lack kept me stuck for years.
By the time I had submitted myself to doing the hard work of growth, I grieved the years I lost to not feeling good enough to enjoy what I was building in real time. Part of my mind always lived in the future. I would tell myself “When I finally get a good job…” or “When I finally lose the weight, then…” There was never a love for the present. To compensate, I’d spend the little money I had on trips so I could have something to look forward to. I still feel sad for this version of me, but now I understand that in order to do the work I believe I was called to do, I had to go through this to gain a deep understanding of what the women I’m working with experience.
If there’s anything I would tell this version of myself, it’d be this: stop treating your current life like a waiting room. When we believe our "real life" starts after a partner, a degree, a house, a baby, or a career milestone, we unintentionally make today feel temporary. When those things do come, make sure that the version of you that receives the wasn’t one that spent the waiting years disappearing and disconnecting.
I may not be able to change my past, but what I can do is help another woman who is currently where I was. If you resonated with anything I shared here, I would love to connect and share an opportunity that’s been living in my heart for over a year: a journal process group.
At the end of July, I will be launching Waiting Seasons: How to Stay Rooted When Life Hasn’t Happened Yet. As someone who’s lived in the in between seasons of life, I’m so excited to share not just my own personal experience but offer a mental health lens on how to create meaning and purpose while remaining present.
This group is for the woman who has been told to just “wait well,” or to “just be grateful” for what they already have…or for the woman who can’t hep but compare her own timeline to others’. If your heart is desiring certain things and it’s a bit hard to remain present in your day to day, let’s talk. As per usual, this is a small, intimate space where we get to process and rewrite these areas of our lives.
The quick details:
July 25th & August 1st at 10am PST
75 minutes per meeting
Cost? About the same as one therapy session
I can’t wait to share these spaces with you. If you’re interested in learning more, please leave a comment or use this link to register.
Con amor,
Lizzy