"Eventually Maybe"

This past week I walked into a coffee shop. If you know me well, you know this is nothing unusual in my world but rather more like a daily ritual in my life. A pattern I only deviate from when I am out in the wilderness hiking and even then there are times I wish a cappuccino or iced pour-over would randomly appear on the rock I am passing by. To date, this has not yet occurred. 

On this busy day as I awaited my cappuccino, I was thinking about all which had already happened in my world this week and what was next on my calendar. Multiple projects were on my mind and my energy was directed to a wondering of how to keep balancing them all and remain balanced internally at the same time. As I was thinking and waiting, I noticed the art, art which reflected back to me what I felt in that moment. I could literally see all the boxes as the people I see each week and as the meetings on my calendar. I could see each box as the various things I have said "yes" to in my life. Some of the boxes are upcoming and some ongoing. Some of these boxes I step into again and again each week while others will disappear from the picture after I walk through them. 

The lines mirrored back to me how I felt in the moment. A feeling of being in various spaces on any given day and also not always knowing how my plan will shift throughout the day. As I continued to look at this picture I noticed something further. Each box had lines around it, as if to create a boundary for where one box ends and another begins. There are also boxes which are similar both in color, or size, or pattern. All the boxes together make up the picture or the picture as a whole. The lines going through it were a reminder to me of our journey through life and the path we take through various boxes and seasons of our life. Its not always a straight journey and what we step into impacts us as we attempt to influence the areas we step into. 

I thought about how often I have involvement in many projects and various things, even working for multiple organizations and yet they all relate to who I am at my core and where my passions lie. Even still I recognize that on this art and in life sometimes there is simply not the space for any more boxes. I love the fact that within the art, the lines do not go through every single box, as if to say "you cannot step into everything at the same time or fully". I fully own that at times my brain still leads me to believe I can.   

I walked out of the coffee shop with a greater awareness and yet still holding so many questions. Which boxes matter most? What is the path I am meant to walk? What is most important to me in this season? 

Life is like this constant state of assessing what we are engaging with and what we are saying "yes" or "no" to, both in the moments and at much grandeur levels. I continued to ponder the questions until later the same day when I was standing with someone who was asked a question. Her response: "eventually maybe". Immediately I knew these were words I needed to hear. Words I had been missing. Eventually maybe. Eventually maybe I will ______. For me these words acknowledged both a longing and desire while also recognizing reality. I heard these words as wrapped in wisdom. The wisdom to know both capacity and the season. Minutes after hearing these words I realized my desire to integrate these words as my own. To practice stating the "eventually maybe". 

At one point in my life in a previous season these words might not have landed the same way in my heart or soul. I would have seen them as words to put off doing something because of fear or as non-committal. I might have even utilized them to keep me from stepping boldly into the next in my life. In this season though, I hear them and want to claim them as a way of recognizing that there is the desire and also the wisdom of knowing capacity. That I can hold onto that hope that one day I will be able to say "yes" while also guarding the things which already exist in my life and are most important to me. While there are a lot of "yes's" in my life, I am working to ensure there are also some "eventually maybe's". 

Whatever season you find yourself in, whether it is one of "yes" or "eventually maybe" I hope you feel permission today to discover where you are and most want to be. That perhaps you might even see something in the art that I did not see and that hopefully it will speak to you in a personal way. 

*Shoutout to Katie, the friend who inspired this blog and shoutout to the artist, whose art can be found displayed at Bold Bean San Marco, in Jacksonville.