Today is the first day of some weeks ahead of being unemployed...Two months ago I left working with the kids I nannied for almost five years. And just last Friday the summer camp I worked at ended. So now here I am, equal parts freaked out and thrilled at the idea of some time off.

I'm not typically an idle person. I thrive off of a busy schedule that has me leaving my house at 7:30am and not returning until 9pm. It's the life I've been living for the past seven years or so being in college and working multiple jobs to keep up.

One of my favorite Dr. Seuss books is Oh the Places You'll Go. I love that it is encouraging, but also real, noting that sometimes you'll be down and out, and sometimes you won't know which way to go. But Dr. Seuss's explanation of "The Waiting Place" turns me off quite a bit. He explains it as a place that you never want to be in. You're just waiting around, not doing anything, perhaps waiting for someone else to do things for you. But to me there's a great deal to be learned in the waiting place. Here's the distinction: I've learned to wait patiently, and not in stagnation.

My yoga practice has influenced this new perspective on waiting. I think it kind of goes along with the idea of being present, of tuning in to what is going on inside of you and around you at the present moment. Because if I'm always rushing from school to work, from obligation to obligation, how am I ever going to hear the still, small voice inside of me directing and encouraging me?

So freaking much is unknown in my life right now. How long before I get a job? Will it be a job that fulfills me? Or will I need to put in more time working a menial job just to get to where I'm going? And by the way, WHERE exactly am I going?! Do I go to New York to look for a job? Or do I go to New York for just a couple weeks to reconnect to myself and dedicate time to my thesis?...

It's a never ending track that runs in my mind and heart all day. But what I am committing to in these weeks of unemployment and unknown is that I will write every day, either in this blog platform, or on my thesis. A friend recently reminded me that yes, this plan of writing is adds a little bit of structure to my time off and that will benefit me. But she encouraged me to also appreciate and sit in the stillness, as it will be gone before I know it and I will be taken back up into the whirlwind of this path I'm on.

So here's my mantra moving forward:

Structure and Stillness

xxo