The lovely, spiritual, intuitive Amy Oscar is hosting a December Writing Circle. Every day (give or take a few), she is presenting participants with writing prompts to do with as we please. We can use them, ignore them, choose to eat Oreos instead. I love that kind of freedom.

Today’s prompt, however spoke volumes to me. It crowded out the siren song of the Christmas chocolates and inspired me to sit for spell and write…

“We don’t know anything. There is a place between here and there, between mystery and science, between staying and leaving, between choice and becoming: a place where most of us do not want to stay very long. We want to name and explain everything. We want to understand, to know – so we can put things in their places.

And yet, sitting in this space of not yet, of “I don’t know,” can be the most powerful place of all. For it is here, having departed the familiar and not yet arrived at the ‘who knows where,’ that anything is possible.

Come and sit in the in-between for a while. Write from there.

Consider, from this place of becoming and dreams, what is moving toward you through the silence? What gathers at the edges of your life, awaiting entry? What clarity have you left behind in order to embrace the not-yet-formed? What is beginning to stir inside of you, not yet born but almost ready to emerge?”

Wow.

The past month has been a living, breathing journey for me. From anxiety-producing fear and trepidation to free-flowing tears to hollow loneliness to surrender, peace, and contentment, my emotions have run the gamut.

Kids are settled, Chris is settled, I was unsettled. I’d thrown all my energy into making sure my family was okay, that everyone else felt at home and at peace.

I forgot about myself.

And so, it snuck up on me, this discontent and depression. It was a surprise when it tapped me on the shoulder. I was not ready for it. Did not see it coming. It easily took me hostage.

Although there are many wonderful and exciting things about moving to another state, about beginning a new life, about embracing different experiences, it is still a monumental change. There is uncertainty. There is fear. There is loneliness.

There are days my heart physically aches for my distant friends, my far-away family. The pain is palpable. It is a grief that stands on its own.

And yet.

The silence, the emptiness, it also carries promise. It carries hope. It carries peace.

What I choose to experience is mine for the taking.

I am discovering parts of myself in the South that had been buried for a long time underneath the routine, the familiarity, the comforts of home. When I allow myself to sit for a moment, to stop driving from errand to errand, to put the mop away, to ignore the clothes that need to be folded, to embrace the six hours of silence while my kids are at school making new friends and discovering new bits and pieces of themselves, I stand to learn a great deal.

Listening, sitting, being… these are challenges for me. But through hardship comes the greatest reward. So I am learning. I am becoming.

Don’t worry, I’m still me. I still curse. I still drink too much red wine. I still laugh too loudly, embarrass my kids, engage in public displays of affection with my husband. I’m bossy. I’m a worrier. I’m a movie whore with a shoe addiction. I love my friends fiercely, I miss them without reservation. I write. Always, I write. And something else is forming below the surface of me — something a little more spiritual, a little more in tune, a little more magical.

I don’t know what it is, but that’s okay. Not everything has to be named, not everything has to be categorized, not everything has to be filed in its proper place and labeled accordingly.

It is. It will be. And for now, that’s enough.