I feel like I am talking about someone else’s life.

That’s what I scrawled down on a folded-over A4 folio in whichever pen was closest yesterday morning after a quick conversation with a colleague who hadn’t yet heard the rumour that I was leaving my job. This discussion came on the back of my position being advertised two days ago, and while my closest colleagues have all known my plans for months, my resignation and our move to the UK is now public knowledge.

In these last few days, so many people have approached me, asking questions about my future that I generally don’t have the answers too. And I am not someone who likes having non-existant answers to questions. Especially big ones. As I said in my previous post, I thrive on rationale. But alas, there I found myself, talking to this colleague who was asking me all sorts of questions, and there I was answering with whatever shreds of answers I have. And that made me feel a little frustrated and a great deal scared. The reason for this? I was reminded of the glaring uncertainty defining my future.

It has been unbelievably difficult living which this uncertainty for the last six months…. but I’m learning to live in it. A few weeks ago my psychologist and I discussed the idea of certainty. It came in the middle of waiting for a result on Stephen’s medical certificate. We were at a point where we were having to face the question of what we would do if he doesn’t get the Class 1 Medical he needs to continue to work as a commercial pilot. There was a very, very real chance that everything he (and we) had worked towards would be pulled out from under our feet. There was deep fear in this time; deep uncertainty. And so my psychologist encouraged me to think about what is certain, and we came up with me. I am certain of myself. I am in control of myself.

At the moment, that is not how I feel. At the moment I feel cornered and yet in free fall at the same time. I’m not sure what I can grasp at and hold onto, and that’s maybe what triggered that thought yesterday: I feel like I am talking about someone else’s life.

And then I try to remind myself that this is my life. All the change and adventure and uncertainty? That’s what defines my life right now. And maybe I need to remind myself that I’ve never been one for boring. Even though I sometimes see myself as conventional and unexceptional, I am the one who travelled Thailand solo not long ago, I am the one who completed a MA while working full time, I am the one who insisted on a picnic dinner at our wedding. Maybe I need to remind myself that when uncertainty strikes, I am still me.

And so I’m trying to embrace the uncertainty. It is shockingly hard at the moment, and I am struggling to make decisions, and maybe hiding behind my work and endless crime procedurals just a little bit. But I know that the uncertainty will bring with it so much beauty. Yes, it’s hard, but man is there a lot of gloriousness on its way.

Maybe I am talking about my own life after all. This is my life, and, if nothing else, I have certainty over that.