i'm not sure what i'm doing with my adult life
camping out in the hallway since graduating high school? me too.
So many of my articles start with a crisis—usually inner battles, that are then worked through mentally or through conversation (off the web) and result in, if not a neat tidy bow, at least have a resolution of some kind.
I’m not sure that this will be one of those.
It’s hard being in your twenties. You might laugh, I know. Definitely a first world problem.
But for me, and I know for so many other young people, that is the case. There are so many viable career opportunities, which is wonderful and life-giving in one sense, but in another, sometimes it leaves you in a sea of just not knowing what to do. And in that seemingly endless list of options, maybe there’s not one that appeals to you in just such a way that makes you want to seek it out.
It’s not just careers, though. This is the time where, especially as a woman, it can be challenging, watching friends get married or fall in love, or, in some cases, have their first baby. There are weddings to attend, so many “Congratulations!” are in order, which I am overjoyed to give, because who doesn’t love weddings, baby showers, and other celebrations of new seasons?
Not everybody has entered or found their door yet, though. I’m one of those, and feeling like you’re wandering or misguided in some way becomes exhausting and overwhelming, demotivating and at times downright depressing.
I’m thankful—more than thankful—for the life the Lord has rendered to me and I want to be faithful to the season and gifts He’s bestowed. I’m also coming to realize that it doesn’t mean life will never feel like it’s beating you down and you aren’t sinking or being left behind.
That’s why this article may not have a resolution. Because I’m still walking in this place right now, and I know eventually doors (or windows) will be thrown wide open or maybe just by a crack. Sometimes the hallway just feels lonely and far away from where you think you ought to be.
In Mere Christianity, Lewis writes famously,
…It (referring to the book itself) was more like a hall out of which doors open in several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others, feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep praying for the light; and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are commong to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling.
The context specifically meant here was choosing what sort of branch of Christianity God is leading you to embrace. But I really believe that so much of life can be framed in this manner. As a young woman—a young adult—it feels like so much of our time is waiting on things outside our control or making moves you aren’t sure are the right ones. There is constant uprooting and change, and so many mistakes are made. They say your twenties are the years for that, but I sincerely wish that wasn’t true. I may be young, but I don’t want to be uprooted al the time. I don’t want my entire life to shift by one decision, and that be the pattern, decision after decision.
Sometimes I want to take a rest from the ups and downs, the all arounds. I want to feel settled, in who I am, where I am, what I am doing. Is that so much to ask?
There’s something in that quote that gives me hope, and on the flip side forces me to take stock of where I am and be okay with it, because right now I am in the hallway. I’m in the hallway when it comes to church, relationships, career, friendships, family, finances, and essentially every part of life.
Maybe there’s something that can be exciting about that, too. Doors to be knocked on, opportunities to be tried. Maybe some of them will be giant disasters. Others will be huge successes, and there will be all kinds in between.
Doesn’t mean the hallway feels fun or life-giving, or even exciting for that matter. Sometimes it just feels taxing. Exhausting. Overwhelming. Like too much responsibility heaped on shoulders that can’t take the weight.
Inwardly I battle that sinking feeling my chest, every day I wake up. Knowing that there is opportunity to grow and morph and be refined even in the darkness of this proverbial hallway, where I know in my heart that I am not being kept waiting out of malicious or unkind reasons, that I am not really alone, and that He waits right next to me, excited to reveal all the plans in store when I finally open that glorious door and walk through it.
Courage is needed to walk through the doors, courage I’m not sure I have yet. I know it will come, eventually. These things take time—a lifetime, really. I suppose that’s what this life is about: growing into the virtues which God calls ‘Himself’. There is no courage, faith, hope, nor love without God who embodies such higher powers.
Something about being thrust into the adult world is daunting and over-powering. Like suddenly you’re thrust into limelight you never wanted to be under and somebody is asking you to rehearse an act you didn’t know you’d volunteered for. Anyone else, or just me?
What happened to the wonder of childhood? Time unfettered by counting it? What happened to adventures in imaginary worlds and trusting to the way things would somehow just ‘work out’?
I’m on a mission to recover it.
Now that makes me excited.
Weekly journal prompt
What ‘hallway’ do you feel like you’re waiting in, and why? What moves are you making to knock at doors while choosing to remain grounded/confident in who you are, where you are? How can these two things play in harmony together?
Pictures from my solo beach trip. ⤴
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