That Happened. Now What?

For a long time now I’ve been doing what some people might call procrastinating but which I choose to call “getting ready." Or even, “preparing." It takes the time it takes, all of it. It’s taken the time it took. And now, click, that thing actually happened and I didn’t die. I’m not dead. There’s still more. Holy moly. Like, the thing I was preparing for, dreading, wanting, fearing, happened and I didn’t die and I’m not done and I’m living in this after-that-happened land. And of course part of me is like, “Oh No!” that’s the default. My default, for whatever reason: “Oh No! Aaaaah!” Wordless, thoughtless, aimless terror of not knowing what’s going to happen or What To Do. Hmmm.

But now, thanks to years of therapy and yoga and crystal healing and meditation and I-statements and smudging and twelve-stepping and elixir drinking and listening to other people’s stuff and practicing noticing and perhaps nothing I’ve done at all other than staying alive long enough to ripen, now thanks to all that I can keep going, past the paralyzing default, “Oh no,” into the next thing: “Now what?” Now I keep going. It’s like, “Oh right. There it is. Oh no. Ok. Now what?”

Maybe I’ll use the Kind Auntie voice on myself, just because I can: “Look at you, sweet one! You are doing it. You are living. You don’t need to know what to do or where you’re going, or the best way. Just keep at it and be willing to let things be as good as they can be.” And I’ll let that land, and I’ll breathe in and out.

Yes I am willing to let things be as good as they can be. Yes I am willing to keep going. All the chatter, the dread, the oh no, the what if this and the what if that, yep it’s all there. Yep, still there. But there’s something else too, something beyond all that and I’m gonna get me some. I’m getting it. Ok, oh no, now what? Yes.