What if we're not behind?

Indecision reframed.

I think it's probably clear, but I've handed someone something transparent that became opaque in the transfer to their hands before so just to be sure (and maybe redundant). I’m in a period of rediscovering me and exploring what I want to do to better the world around me and live in more alignment with myself, the universe, and my purpose.

Which sounds exciting. Or maybe it sounds cringe and woo-woo. But mostly it has just been… a process. I hope writing about how I navigate it will help someone, somewhere who’s navigating the same thing. Maybe you. If it does, please don’t hesitate to subscribe and comment. Or shoot me an email if you want to keep it private. If you think it might be help someone else, please share. And even if you do none of those things and all you do is read these words, I’m so glad you’re here. Welcome in.

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I’ve been feeling behind. Like everyone else knows what they’re doing and I just… don’t. I feel like I do not have my shit together like a 30-something year old should. My mother part is hanging from the hands of my biological clock. I live in a one bedroom apartment that hoovers my income, but I don’t want to leave my friends and the source of income that I feed the housing vacuum. I feel uninspired by my career. I stuffed my passions down so long ago that it feels like someone else did it. I feel like I spent the years I was supposed to be the happiest, and most productive negotiating poorly with depression instead. I don’t feel like a real adult. I feel like I fucked up somewhere. I feel like I need to get my shit together ASAP to not waste what’s left of this big beautiful life I’m knees deep in. I feel like I need to run full speed to make up for lost time or it might be too late. I feel like I have not been living in alignment with my life’s purpose, but I’m not even sure exactly what that means and I should have figured that out by now, right?! RIGHT?!

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I’m a knob to 11 kind of person. The above - that’s knob to 11. Knob to 11 is also every feeling being a big feeling, purple straws that elicit audible delight, hearing a great new country song and immediately looking up flights to Nashville.

Knob to 11 can be awesome - it is how I get big things done. It’s how ExtendPUA.org became hundreds of people meeting with 40 Senate offices and not just an Action Network email that I and a few friends sent. It’s how I just refurnished my entire living room in one four hour Amazing Race through 2 states with a friend, a U-Haul, and some Facebook marketplace haggling last Sunday.

However, it also means my old couch is still in my apartment like this.

Knob to 11 can be overwhelming. Breakups are ‘I’m going to be alone forever’s. I realize my career doesn’t speak future to me anymore, and my whole life was for naught; everything I did was a mistake. Now all decisions must be made while walking on eggshells decades in the future.

Knob to 11 means sometimes I intimidate myself. I make forward movement almost impossible for myself because I draw a mountain that goes straight up, with the face of a slide instead of a bunch of steps. My dreams always have to change the world. And make money so I can keep my current lifestyle. And do it right now.

And if I slip on a slide that wasn’t supposed to be one and now it all doesn’t feel possible RIGHT NOW or I can’t really see the path there clearly (hard to do when I skip past it), I get discouraged or overwhelmed and then I freeze.

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Knob to 11 is partly because I feel so behind and it’s partly just who I am. A lot of parts of me sit at the knob. Ambition is there, my Dramatic part is there, Creativity and the Dreamer are there. But Control is the one with her hand on the knob. Control is the one who feels behind and wants to fix it now. She needs to know what’s going to happen. Not just next, but next next next etcetera to infinity it order to keep us safe. She escalates every plan until she can predict the future. She pushes the knob so we can catch up.

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But Control is a fickle bitch. And she’s reactive. She hears the Cautious parts of me start to whisper about how we actually don’t have control, we don’t know what will happen — the ambitious one and the dreamer are so high that they could fall and get really hurt. Caution holds hurt and fear so the other parts don’t have to. She keeps all of the demons built by other people’s doubts and society’s standards in her own head so they doesn’t eat at anyone else… but a little bit leaks out to Control.

And Control slams the knob to 0. Shut it all the fuck down before someone gets hurt. Handled. She sprinkles sleepy dust over my eyes, making my will to create lethargic, she lets Caution plant seeds of doubt and water them with the spit of our monsters. She sits on the couch and pats the seat beside her, “don’t you miss The Bachelor? There’s always a new season. And we know what happens next if we don’t change a thing, don’t move.”

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I’ve been riding this knob rollercoaster my whole life, but it mostly leads back to the same place, just slightly altered. A picture askew, a cup on the table that wasn’t there before.

Now, in my mid-thirties, I want off the ride. I want forward. I want big change. I’m ready to lead the Revolution I’ve been waiting for. I want these dreams I've got percolating. I can taste them. And I want them enough that I have to find a real way forward. I have to find a way for all of the delicious parts of me to work together to turn the knob at a pace everyone can move together at.

Because wanting things finally feels good again. It feels like desire for life, which, after years of depression is a hopeful trumpet’s call through the dark. It is a beacon. I want. I yearn. I ache. I crave. But it is not a despondent want, it’s a grateful, hungry, active want. It’s knowing I have the power to make and take the things I want. And that is alive in a new way.

But it's also familiar.

I want like a bright-eyed 20 year old fresh out of school me wanted. I want like 10 year old me wanted. I want like 6 year old me wanted.

I want I want I want.

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Managing the knob

When feelings get too 11 or thoughts skip so many steps that the effect doesn't even track back to the cause anymore, or I make a plan for tomorrow based on what might happen 18 years into the future, my therapist looks at me with a tilt of the head and my brain repeats what she said to me out loud only once… “just turn the knob down a bit and see what it feels like.” I've repeated it to myself so many times it feels like a prayer.

Two things help me actually do that.

• Physically putting my hand up and cupping a big invisible knob and turning it down just a twist of the wrist. These are my prayer hands.

• What ifs.

What if you’re not really behind? What if this is just the path you’re on and it’s a good one?

What if finding ways to live a more fulfilling life aligned with your soul doesn’t mean you have to quit your job while you figure it out. What if you don’t have to give up everything else to find what’s next?

What if small changes are big changes?

What if you have time?

Turn the knob down. What if I don't have to have it all figured out?

Okay sure, what if?

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If we have time, we can take our time.

If we don’t have to have it all figured out, there’s room for learning.

What do Caution and Control need in order to feel safe climbing to 11 without slamming on the emergency break?

Knowledge. So I start to research all of the directions I am interested in going. I connect with people in each direction. I do this for a week. It’s fun. I feel like 22 year old Stephanie, earnest, full of curiosity, eager, inspired, brainstorming, dreaming. I feel like 8 year old Stephanie, consuming every thing she could read and learn and churning out language of her own. The world at our feet.

I start formulating first steps and plans.

But then I freeze again.

This path might not be the right one! I might be choosing the wrong first step, the wrong plan, the wrong path.

I feel indecisive. I feel like my interests are too varied and unconnected and so none of them can really be the passion I should pursue. I wonder if actually I’m too ambitious or maybe I lack real motivation or maybe I'm just too flakey. Maybe I have too many interests and I’m switching gears too quickly.

I feel like a kid who’s parents get annoyed that they paid for piano lessons and then the next week the kid wants to try painting and why can’t you just stick with something? You have no focus!

But I fucking love those kids. Enthusiastic curiosity and wildly imaginative possibilities with no limits is exactly how to be a kid. This is one of the many things I learned about kids in the two years I spent working at an education startup company. We were trying to build the best online club space for every interest for kids 9-14. The best Artists Club for budding artists. The best Chess Club for the chess obsessed. But most kids wanted to be in multiple (or even every) Club. What they wanted was places to explore and friends to explore with.

That was their natural tendency. And what a beautiful way to operate in the world, to learn, to find what they like best, to figure out what the want to be when they grow up. To play.

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Those words make my heart sing, but someone stern inside says, that's great for kids but you’re an adult. You’re supposed to know what you want. You have bills to pay. You’re in your thirties - you should “have your shit together.”

The same voice let me play for a week, but then said “a week is enough for the kid-stuff. Get back to being serious.” I embraced the research and curiosity phase, but then quickly demanded answers from myself. We can only be curious and research for a minute. The next step is a decision.

Turn the knob down

But why would I have this figured out? Why am I being so unrealistic with expectations for myself?

What if first steps are still part of the research phase and not a decision at all?

What if you have time? What if you have time to explore until something says hello it's me.

What if it all goes right?

Turn the knob down

What if you're not indecisive, you're just still learning, still exploring options.

What if exploring IS a choice. What if it IS a decision?

What if not “having our shit together” means we’re just pushing ourselves into places of growth?

What if going through a period of exploration again is not moving backwards, it's breaking through?

What if play isn’t just for kids? What if play and exploration are the key to finding the things that make us soar?

What if we hear better with the ears of our younger selves?

What happens if I let kid Stephanie and fresh-out-of-school 20s Stephanie play? What if I stop trying to control them? What if I let exploration be the choice until something else grabs me?

They’re safe. You’ve built a life that’s safe to play in. Good job. Let them play. Let them lead.

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A list of kid Stephanie things I’m embracing

• Play

• Everything being music

• Not caring what people think

• Unexpected movement and sound

• Curiosity

• Exploration without needing something out of it.

• Seeing things fresh

• Constantly having snacks on hand for snack time

• Rewards for doing hard things (okay, let’s be honest, I do this as an adult)

• Acknowledged bravery and smarts.

• Making up stories

• Learning

• Creating unusual uses for things.

• Not being fucking cool

• Wanting

And the rollercoaster keeps going but starts to flatten out a little more after each loop.

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If I keep editing this, I will never send it to you so here's my heart a little extra drafty this week. Please forgive the typos and changing rules. ;)

What kid You things are you embracing? Come play.