yet.

Last week I opened a large, flat envelope at my parents’ house to find my diploma from Fuller. A couple of weeks ago, I had seen some excited and celebratory posts from some of my classmates who had received theirs, which made me anxious to see my own. However, when I opened that envelope and carefully removed the piece of paper confirming the completion of my master’s degree, I cried — not tears of joy or gratitude (I feel guilty just typing that out) but tears of grief, frustration, and shame.

Because in that moment, that piece of paper did not represent the time, work, growth, and discovery of the past two years. It represented unrealized plans, unmet expectations — my failure. It held all of the shame, anxiety, and anguish of the decision to leave the MS MFT program and switch to an MA degree in family studies — a degree that I had not planned to get nor had a clear picture of how to use. It amplified the unknown and the uncertainty of the past two months of being back in Fresno.

I know my last posts present the opposing and perhaps more rational and reasonable perspectives: the hope found in the unknown, the peace from “just enough light,” and the constant learning process of freely accepting grace. I still believe those are true and valid. They are what I strive for. However, it also feels important to share this true and valid part of my story, because while there is hope in what’s to come, there are also feelings of loss and grief from what I let go, from what could have been.

While I realize that personality categorizations and assessments, especially when self-assessed, should be taken with a grain of salt, I have found learning about the Enneagram to be a helpful and healing resource in this season. David Daniels and Virginia Price’s description of the Type One in The Essential Enneagram is overwhelmingly relatable.

Reading this made sense of the tearful reaction to my diploma. It explained the shaming inner monologue that keeps making an appearance in my mind:

“I’ve been back in Fresno for just over two months. I don’t have a job. I don’t have any actionable ideas of how I want to use my degree or pursue involvement in member care. I don’t have our apartment fully unpacked or decorated. We haven’t joined a church community.”

And it’s helping me to add a little word to the end of each of those sentences: Yet.

I don’t have a job yet. I don’t have any actionable ideas of how I want to use my degree or pursue involvement in member care yet. I don’t have our apartment fully unpacked or decorated yet. We haven’t joined a church community yet.

What a difference that little three-letter word can make.

Predictably, Nouwen again has words to encourage and challenge me. This time from Can You Drink the Cup?:

We have to live our life, not someone else’s. We have to hold our own cup. We have to dare to say: “This is my life, the life that is given to me, and it is this life that I have to live, as well as I can. My life is unique. Nobody else will ever live it. I have my own history, my own family, my own body, my own character, my own friends, my own way of thinking, speaking, and acting—yes, I have my own life to live. No one else has the same challenge. I am alone, because I am unique. Many people can help me to live my life, but after all is said and done, I have to make my own choices about how to live.”

Finding hope in the “yet,”

Kate

just enough light

Today is my last full day in Pasadena. This week has been filled with packing and cleaning; the week before was all about finishing school. We said our first goodbyes (to our community group) two weeks ago and we'll say our last ones tomorrow as friends come to help us load up the moving truck. Over the last few weeks, as the end of school and our time here was fast approaching, I have been trying to reflect upon and reminisce about this past season. There's so much I want to say, so many experiences to recount, so many people I want to thank. Maybe I'll make another post to do that. For now, I want to take a moment to claim and affirm some of the things I'm taking home with me.

My time here has looked nothing like I thought, hoped, or at some times even wanted, but I wouldn't change a thing. I am leaving Pasadena/coming back to Fresno so different than who I was when left Fresno/came to Pasadena two years and seven months ago. I have struggled, learned, ached, and grown in ways that I never expected. I've allowed myself to feel sad, angry, afraid, and confused and because of that, I experienced a greater hope and deeper joy than I ever knew was possible. It's not because those all of those emotions are enjoyable to experience, but rather it is because by experiencing them, I was able to be unapologetically myself. And ultimately, although I have changed, I am still me. In fact,

I am more myself than I have ever been. 

It's probably no surprise that I have found words from the ever-sage Henri Nouwen to help me articulate my perspective.  These excerpts describe hope. The kind of hope that I have found, that I carry with me.

From Here and Now:

While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart. When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God's love within me and around me.  

From Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness. 

And finally, from Bread for the Journey:

Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

Moving forward in hope,
Kate