Life in a bubble is awesome. Think about it: You’re inside this perfectly enclosed circle of never-ending happiness (unless, of course, the bubble pops), you’ve got enough air to breathe and enough room to stretch your arms and legs, you can do whatever you want inside that little bubble because it’s your own (unless, of course, the bubble pops) and you’re happy with how things are inside that little bubble, but you also have reason to be anxious and excited because eventually, you know, your bubble will pop. Your bubble will pop because a bubble can’t be a bubble forever. Eventually, it will crash into a brick wall or even just lightly touch the top of a car’s antenna.
Let’s say you have complete control over where your bubble is headed, though. Let’s say you’re headed to to the next step in your career or you’ve just decided to move across the world to try something new. You know that life inside your current bubble will soon change drastically, but since it hasn’t burst yet, you’re still content, making your happy little way to the next fork in the road, to the next landing pad.
And then, one morning, you wake up and see your runway fast approaching, just waiting for you to land. You don’t really know what to expect after landing on this runway, all lit up and clean. You know there will be people to help you, to direct you, to support you. However, you also know there will be people who will be hard to work with, who will be demanding and irrational and who will be insensitive and easily misunderstood.
At once, your small bubble of pure joy becomes this evil sphere keeping you from escaping your thoughts and your anxieties about your, now potentially crash-landing , entrance into a new chapter. Instead of feeling excited about taking a risk and embracing change, paranoia is starting to take over and you’re thinking of all the things you’ll miss about your perfect little bubble – so clear, so concise, so comfortable.
So as your bubble speeds up, bringing you closer and closer and closer to touching the ground, you close your eyes, possibly cry, possibly scream and eventually bring yourself into a state of complete terror, almost like what happens when you’re on a roller coaster and your best friend had made you sit in the first car.
Then, you land and the bubble pops softly, leaving you standing on an open runway with little direction on where to go, where to turn.
You have two ways to react: You could start heading back the way you came, on foot (as the previous chapter of your life no longer exists), and forget this crazy nonsense of starting something new, or you could try this something different. You could face your insecurities, take harsh feedback, build thick skin, challenge yourself and eventually fall in love with your new life, so in love that when it’s time for you to pack up and head on to something else, you feel proud, just like you had when you stepped inside that awesome bubble and started adjusting to what you had perhaps once referred to as claustrophobic and too routine.
I’m starting a new chapter in my life next week. I’ve taken a leap of faith and taken an opportunity I never expected to come my way so soon, though I’ve spent years hoping and praying it would. I’m currently happy where I am and looking forward to where I’ll be, as well as scared to lose what I’ve learned and numb to what will happen next.
This is nothing new, though. Change, thankfully, is consistent.
How do you feel when something great ends but something, maybe, even better is just about to begin?
xo
a quarter young 