What Now?

As a recent college graduate and newly retired athlete I find myself asking the question I’m sure a million others have been asking too, “what now?” Maybe you’re not a college graduate, but we all know life always hits at once in the department of change and something might have left you wondering the same question.

Change can be an exciting thing.... but let’s be real it’s also terrifying. Moral of the story how do we decide what to do next? How to we deal with the big life changes that leave you feeling stranded? The typical thing to say here might be “if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other everything will fall into place." If you don't already know me I am not a fan of this type of advice. Everything will fall into place? Like come on people how many things in life have actually fallen into place without any action or decision of yours behind it?! But that’s just it, I think that’s what it’s about. It's about taking action and it's about making a decision. So what now? Well friends I think it’s entirely up to us.

A day after I graduated I went into a season of moving. I moved 3 times in the course of three weeks! I moved and sold the home I had made for myself at school in Texas, my parents sold and moved out of my home base in Colorado, and then I moved back to Texas into a temporary space desperate for some stability while I finish a few classes and study for the MCAT. I like a fast pace life, but this was all a little too much at once for me. In the midst of starting a new chapter trying to figure out who I am now I have been accompanied with the stress of studying, moving, and loss. Now, I’m not sharing any of this to provoke any form of pity (for those who don't already know me I also hate that), I’m sharing this because of what I have come to realize in the midst of these big life changes.

I came across this quote last week and it said “you can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” In the middle of feeling so incredibly anxious and left behind I realized life gave me what I needed to jump start the “now”. Life dropped me in the middle of the ocean and said hope you can swim, and while all I could focus on was trying to tread and keep my head above water I didn’t realize the coolest part of what I now have. If someone did let’s say theoretically drop you in the middle of the ocean you have an unlimited amount of directions to swim. Some directions might take longer to get to the next shore, some might be rockier, some might be calmer, but nevertheless they are directions you can go all in on. A slate has been wiped clean for me and my shore or my home has quite literally been taken away, but I didn’t see what actually mattered. No one gets to tell me where to go anymore because I get to choose. Head first, all in , and knees deep in the waves of change but nevertheless learning some new strokes to swim. And real talk, a lot of us are stubborn (I know I am) and without being thrown in all at once, it's hard to dive in at all. Stability isn’t everything we think it is, but luckily uncertainty is much more than what it looks like at first glance.

So, one day you just gotta wake up and grasp the unexpected change, or maybe the expected change, and choose to handle it. Allow yourself to move toward what you might want to do next. And so I ask again, "What now?" Friends, the what is the now so live in it, utilize it. Keep on swimming and know in your heart you have what it takes to never let yourself drown.