Answer the Phone

For the last several years I’ve felt like the universe has had a giant hand behind me, flicking away any potential suitors that arrive within my sphere.

Those elusive people who not only like me, but pique my interest as well, have shown up in my periphery to tease me with qualities, traits, and a sense of what I’d like to share in my life with another human.

One showed up just to show me what it feels like to have someone show up for me. Make plans with me. What it feels like when someone is excited about me.

Another showed up to show me what chemistry and attraction felt like again. To meet my humor and craving for random conversations about a quote I saw.

Still another arrived to show me someone so passionate about their life and the dreams that they are bringing to fruition; I couldn’t help but feel inspired and drawn in.

But though I felt the beginning of curiosity and spark… none of these people were for me.

Each fizzled out.

Life got busy, exes returned, and—while passion is attractive—it wasn’t going in the direction of my soul.

And, as all of this was happening… as my crushes each fizzled out like a spent sparkler…

I kept hearing detach.

And it came with different voices…

It told me to follow my passion and dreams. To make sure I am meeting myself and not waiting for something outside of me to bring me meaning.

It told me that my life goal right now is to be in the in-between.

It’s to flirt, to have fun, and to not ask where something is going.

It told me that my life is getting ready to change and I need the space for what is coming.

It told me, You’re in the middle of infinite potential and possibility… the best is going to happen to you… What are you scared of?

Your dreams coming true?

Already, so many of them are coming true. And while it’s been scary and uncomfortable, I don’t want to go back.

I never thought about it being scary that my dreams are coming true. I was always more worried that they wouldn’t happen… and now, now that they are actually starting to arrive, I realize that these dreams are costing me something.

They are costing me the security of my old life. The life I know and know well.

It kind of reminds me of when I started teaching. I had to be a substitute teacher for a year, and it terrified me to go into schools and classrooms that I didn’t know. To wake up and not know where I was going that day, but I just had to be ready.

I had the belief the phone would ring and a job would be there, and I got ready, and there was always a job… typically several to choose from.

But I had to get over the discomfort of not knowing. I had to give up the comfort of certainty. I had to live in the unknown every day and trust.

I couldn’t lie in bed thinking about having a job, or I wouldn’t be ready. I actually had to get up, get dressed. Prepare. Make myself available, and answer the phone.

The universe is asking the same thing of me.

To wake up every day ready to live my dreams… and trust that every day they will arrive.

Maybe it’s writing this thing right here. Going to an event. Following a strange idea. Making plans without waiting to see whether someone will join me. Flirting without constructing a future. Letting attraction wake something in me without immediately needing to know what it means.

I said this the other day. Detachment isn’t I don’t care.

It isn’t I don’t want.

It isn’t even I don’t hope.

It’s I don’t need to know yet.

So, even though my crushes have fizzled out.

They did their job and ignited me.

Perhaps that’s what all of our almosts and what-ifs and just-abouts do?

They ignite us.

They show us what we want. What we’re capable of wanting. What parts of ourselves are ready to wake back up.

We don’t have to know what comes next.

We just need to get up. Get dressed. Make ourselves available.

And answer the phone.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤