The Tornado of Indecision

I’m watching my eighteen-year-old daughter struggle with a big decision right now. She’s trying to decide where to go to college. She applied to multiple schools and she has a broad selection of choices but she doesn’t know the answer. 

I, too, at fifty-four, feel like I am at another crossroads. Do I want to stay at my current job or is it time to move on? Will leaving this job and moving onto another just be more of the same? What is the right answer?

A few nights ago at dinner I tried to tell my daughter that the college answer would come, that by questioning herself she was working out a path to her final decision. In the moment I think I said something like, “your not-knowing is going to help you to ultimately know.”

As she often does, my daughter looked at me like, “… the fuck?!!!” I couldn’t explain it more but because I am in a similar position right now (though not nearly as proportionately big) as my daughter, I have faith in that approach.

Not-knowing is the starting point on the path to knowing. Not-knowing is a place of so much information and possibility that it is impossible to move from that place until some things filter out. In the not-knowing there is an absence of clarity. It’s like the Wizard of Oz tornado —  porches, shoes, trees, cows, and bicycles flying every which way. It’s not safe to move from the basement during the not-knowing. You just wait it out.

Then there is the space-between the not-knowing and the knowing. The space-between is the aftermath of the tornado. Come up the stairs of the basement, open the door a crack and listen for wind, walk outside and look at the damage. Take a deep breath. Take another. What’s next?

In the space-between there is a bit more calm, but still chaos. You still haven’t arrived to the place you want to be. For my daughter she sees that she’s getting closer to having to make a decision. As she looks around her post-tornado inner-world she sees that there is so much information to sift through — how much financial aid am I getting?; do I like the campus?; do I want a bigger or smaller school?; should I go to California?; do I want to go where my friends are going?

For me, in considering the possibilities of my professional life — staying in my job and making the best of it, leaving my job for another known job, or leaving my job and free-falling until I find another job — I also have many questions. What if a new position is filled with the same baggage as my current one?; what if I leave this job and I regret it?; what if I’m just making this decision because I’m emotional about something else?

And in this space-between is the big question, “How will I know?” What I’m starting to understand is that we do know the answers to these big questions. Deep down in our gut-space is the truth that will be revealed once we work our way through the space-between.

For my daughter she will have to churn through her questions. She’ll have to struggle and face her fears of making the wrong decision. She’ll have to ask herself hard questions and listen. Same for me. The space-between is the hardest part because it’s a little bit of both the not-knowing and the knowing. It’s crazy making because it’s neither one nor the other. It’s exhausting to be in both places at the same time.

Patience and faith are the way through this space-between. All of the questions and confusions that exist for my daughter regarding her choice of a college will slowly get answered. As this happens, things will start to look more like they did pre-tornado. Roofs will be repaired, trash hauled away. The sun will come out the weather will be calm. 

I, too, have to slow down my process. I can’t race my way out of the space-between. I have to listen to my questions and explore the answers. I have to prune the wind-ravaged trees and replant the daphne that got pulled out in the storm. 

And while we do this work, my daughter and I, we have to have faith that the answers will be revealed, that we will soon know what we should each do next. This is easier for me because I’ve lived a long life and I can reflect back on my history and see how this process has played out. For my daughter, it’s a scarier place because she hasn’t been here before.

All I can do I is tell her that she’ll know soon, that the answer will come. I can help her patch the roof and clean her yard. I can comfort her in the space-between and remind her that she’s on the path to the knowing.

This is a really hard place, this space-between. It’s rendered both of us impatient, cranky and emotional. But it’s not forever. I imagine us one day, soon, sitting on Dorothy’s front porch, lemonade in hand, sun shining, a gentle, warm wind blowing. We’ll be smiling, not saying anything much, just relaxing, finally home., knowing our answers at last.