Seven months later

Last spring–just seven months ago–I had made a list. Not your traditional to-do list, with its pay the electrical bill, buy cream of tartar, replace the light in the dining room. This list was a big one, full of huge unknowns as we prepared to make a cross-country move that summer. I didn’t know the answers and I didn’t know how we’d find them. The anxiety consumed me.

And yet at the same time, as I packed away our sweaters in anticipation of milder temperatures, I realized that I also needed to pack away my worries. For whether I fretted or not, all those pressing questions and fears for the future would be resolved by the time the weather turned cold again. In just seven short months, I would know the answers.

That was late March.

Now it’s November.

Seven months. Here we are, seven months later. And as I unpacked the winter clothes this weekend, I realized that it was indeed true: Every question and decision I had stressed about was now in the past.

We moved. We survived. We found a neighborhood, a house, a school, activities. We swapped our old library cards for new ones and worked out a schedule and figured out the commute. I know when the mail carrier comes, where the Target is, and which alternate route I can take if traffic backs up on the interstate. We’re busy and life is crazy and we’re settling into the community just like we hoped.

Seven months ago, I didn’t know any of the answers. Seven months ago, the future was a giant question mark.

Seven months later, and this place is–dare I say it?–starting to feel like home.

I’m still a little anxious about the future. Should I sign up for this event? Will the Maiden’s parent-teacher conference go okay? What should I get the Man for Christmas? What changes will the next year bring for our family? What’s the next step I need to make to further my own personal goals? I’m full of questions. Life is full of questions.

But you know what? Worry is senseless, because in a few months or a few years, those decisions will be made, those hurdles crossed, that time of waiting, of wondering–all in the past.

And so.

Here we are on the very eve of the presidential election. Dissent and disharmony have reached their zenith and stress levels are skyrocketing in anticipation of the questions to be decided. But why are we doing this to ourselves? Because in less than 36 hours, that decision–that crazy, hyped-up, anger and angst-generating decision–will be made. And whether we like the solution or whether we don’t, the stress of that decision will be behind us.

Part of another season.

History.

Limbo–that uneasy state of waiting–can be agonizing, but it doesn’t need to be. Time marches forward. And even though the end of the road may seem far away, sometimes all we need is to pause, look back, and realize how far we’ve already come.