Moving forward when you feel like you've been in-limbo forEVER.
Navigating your mindset when you feel like you're in a perpetual state of in-between, women talking money — and more.
Two years ago this week, I posted this:
A snippet from the caption:
"Today’s Micro Shift For A Mega Difference: Replace NEW NORMAL with FOR-NOW NORMAL.
NOW Normal isn’t the same as THEN Normal. And it’s definitely not the same as what Normal WILL BE months from now, when the dust settles, we emerge from our doors, and enter a post-pandemic society. And hug. It’ll be so, so wonderful to hug.
The words we choose to describe the time we’re in *matter.* Saying that this is our “New Normal” implies that the Now is the Forever…which it’s definitely not."
Welp, it's two years later. We have emerged from our doors. Hugs are a thing.
So why does it feel like we're still waiting for something to happen?
PART 1: THE FORGETTING.
Okay, let me amend that: so why does it still feel like *a lot of us are* waiting for something to happen? I don't want to assume what your life has been like, or is like, or how you're feeling in this moment. But if the conversations I've been having and posts I've been seeing on social media are any indication of what's going on beyond the walls of my own brain, then it's pretty clear to me that a lot of us are still waiting for this New Normal people were talking about so often a few years back. Stuck in an interminable limbo.
Waiting.
Adjusting.
Planning, just enough.
Acting, just enough.
Waiting.
Waiting.
(****another really important note: this is not a letter to you about waves or policies. this is about what you might be experiencing internally — a feeling stuckness or waiting, despite "logically knowing" you could be acting and feeling otherwise.)
On a call with my therapist the other day, I admitted to her that I didn't have vivid memories of the past year or so. This, I told her, was alarming to me. Because this, I told her, was something I'd experienced before. And as someone whose memory is usually crystal clear (one friend likes to tell me that I remember her childhood better than she does. we met well into adulthood, I just know all her family's stories and inside jokes), the fact that my memory presents itself as fuzzy and vague is, I told her, a big red flag that something is very off. The last time I experienced this on an intense level, after all, was in college — a time when my life felt so unlike my own that I ended up developing multiple eating and body-related disorders. And while I thankfully haven't been even so much as flirting with any of those destructive avenues this time around, there's one thing that I do realize I've been doing:
I've been shutting down and going through the motions.
You can logically know what you want to do, how you want to do it, every single step on the 200-step list to get you where you want to be. But logic won't get you everywhere.
"It's like I put up a physical wall," I told my therapist, illustrating the wall in front of me with my hand gestures. "I don't feel any which way about the wall — not angry, not sad. I logically know that I want to walk around the corner of the wall and keep moving forward; the corner's right there. But it's like there's something inside of me that just won't do it — that's telling me it's not the time yet."
"It sounds to me," she said gently after some thought, "like your strategy of shutting down and therefore not really remembering is a protective strategy. Is that maybe it? You're doing your best to get yourself through tough times."
As I think about this interminable in-limbo, this For-Now Normal I'm so eager to transition into a New one, I have to remind myself over and over again that this is the thing.
For all of us.
We are doing our best to get ourselves through tough times.
And I think where we've been getting tripped up is thinking that this tough time isn't supposed to be as tough as it is. If we're not in the Before anymore and we're not in the After yet, we ask ourselves — then why does it feel like we've been wherever HERE is for so long?
"Maybe," I mused to my therapist, a cartoon lightbulb popping over my head, "I've needed this moment of checking out a little to help me reset for whatever comes next."
PART 2: THE MOTIONS.
Here's the thing. Transitions, are usually just as tough if not tougher than all the Befores and Afters. Even if we feel as if we're on the precipice of the other side, that doesnt meant it'll all the sudden be easy. And even if we're in a transitional *moment,* that doesn't mean that *moment* is a quick one.
My expectations formed in 2020 — of a smooth and quick transition from the Before to the After — did not match up with the reality of the During that's been 2021/22, and that's both my own doing AND not something to shame myself for. I'm pragmatically positive, looking at the truths in front of me and choosing to believe the ones that feel proactive, not reactive. This is what prevents me from going to those deeper and darker places when times get tough. I'm grateful that my pragmatically positive outlook has carried me through the last few years. And if that part of me needed a transitional moment of "going through the motions" of life in order to clear the slate for whatever's next, I'm here for it.
That's not to say if you get into a pattern of habitually checking out, tuning out, or going through the motions, it's always hunky-dory. That's why I brought it up to my therapist!
But if you're someone who is used to always being ON, always having PLANS, always STRIVING REACHING SCHEMING with motivation and drive for days, and over the last couple years, has been HUSTLING SUPER HARD physically mentally and emotionally just to keep your mojo going...well, maybe this moment is a sign that your mojo just wants a nap.
Having high productivity, drive, and vision 24/7 isn't just not-sustainable, it's not how a full life works. Life is a mix of highs, lows, and everything in between. The thing that matters is that you focus on responding to and/or maximizing the moment you're in instead of escaping it. It's kind of like your classes in high school: maybe you lived for English class and poured your soul into every essay — but you still had to pass Chemistry, which you found boring and aggravating, to graduate.
It's okay to love some times and go through the motions in others.
That doesn't mean you're failing.
It means you're human.
PART 3: THE (FOR) NOW
I've started to believe even stronger in the concept of the For-Now Normal, and believe in it in a different way than before.
What if these past two years — and this past year, especially — has been a call-to-action for all of us to remember that every "Normal" has a "For Now" in front of it?
That things can be both temporary and interminably long at the same time?
That as long as you're not causing yourself of others harm, doing your best to get yourself through a tough time is sometimes the best you can do in the current For Now, before the next For Now comes along?
I'm not telling you to subject yourself to a life of waiting. Be proactive, not reactive.
And I'm also not telling you that every single thing in your life is a matter of choice. Life is a waltz between circumstance and choice, where at any moment one can take over the leading steps.
All I'm saying is that you are in the midst of one of many of your For Nows.
When you become tempted to tell yourself mean things about the season you're in, remind yourself:
"The Now is not the Forever. It never is. Sometimes things come easily, some times are tough. I've gone through many seasons before this and will go through many seasons after this. What matters right now is that I honor where I am, knowing that where I'm going is just another moment away."
Do the best with where you're at, and the best for whatever's next.
Your For Now is for now, just like your next For Now will be too.
Honoring where you are now allows you to practice honoring where you will be.
Trust it.
I’m always here, just an email away, cheering you on. Let me know if this all resonates (or just say hi!) by adding a comment or sending me an email. Or follow up with me on Instagram — I’m @katiehorwitch, if we’re not friends there yet.
Links below to some things I'm loving, articles making me think, and a mixtape that's helped me shift my self-talk most days this month.
I believe in you. I hope you believe in you, too.
What's new with WANT (and me!)
TWO new episodes of the WANTcast are LIVE:
🎙137: Building A Legally Legit Business with Sam Vander Wielen — In this episode, attorney-turned-entrepreneur and legal educator Sam Vander Wielen and I talk about how to build a business that checks off all the right legal boxes, how to figure out what's most important when you're on a budget, and how to get others to take you seriously no matter WHAT you do.
🎙138: Finding Control When There Feels Like None — When you feel like nothing is in your control, how do you gain control? What do you do if your attempt to gain control backfires?
Some things I'm loving (and think you will, too)
📚 WOMEN TALK MONEY: BREAKING THE TABOO, a collection of essays about money edited by Rebecca Walker (former WANTcast guest alert!), is a revelation. Essay after essay I was just sitting and nodding and gasping and laughing and crying and relating and learning and soaking it all in because THANK GOD this book exists. There are stories in here that make me feel seen in ways I have never felt seen before, or maybe it's that I never let anyone see me in those ways in the first place. I want to recommend it to every single human being on this earth and then send it back in time for 23 year-old Katie to read so she doesn't keep telling herself she's irresponsible. You're not irresponsible, kid. You just have no idea where to start and are too scared to ask. Go buy this book.
📰 Feeling stuck? Guilty? Overwhelmed? Try clearing these feelings out of your home by Ingrid Fetell Lee on the TED website follows the theme we've been exploring all month in The WANT Community: spring cleaning your mind, habits, and heart.
🐚 MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON...*MOVIE TRAILER!?!?!* Ok, do you remember the YouTube shorts by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp about 11 years ago or so? Marcel The Shell? Well, Marcel is getting his own movie, and I would be lying if I said I didn't cry through this trailer, which just dropped today. Most anticipated movie of the year, in my eyes.