Boxes on the Shelf

        As I shared almost a month ago with all of you my life is rather busy and to some degree in a surge of chaos between making it through my last 24 days of under grad, graduating, job searching, moving, among many other obligations and life changing events that will occur over the next 4 or so months. I have been stressing a lot about all of the 'things' I need to accomplish in the next few months and trying to come up with a plan 'a' through 'z' for each event/moment. All of this planning along with trying to live my daily life has been causing a lot of anxiety and stress that honestly is self created by allowing my head to jump ahead months in advance while all I really need to worry about is the current. Taking each step moment by moment.
       Over the last two months or so one of my best friends and I have been talking a lot about all of these life changing events we will be going through in the next 4 months, some together and some from a great distance. Tonight we went on a long walk to enjoy the beautiful weather and get some exercise before heading to our bi-weekly bible study that we attend. As we were walking and talking which is honestly my best place to go on long rants and tell her all of things that I am feeling, need to get off my chest, and I am experiencing, I started going on about projects due, events before graduation, graduation and the events that come with that, moving, finding a job, and the distance that will be between us in just a few short months. As we were walking she reminded me to take each project, event, and moment a step at a time. Each thing has to happen in its time and place, no amount of over planning or anxiety about it is going to change the out come, it will be what it is. She continued by saying 'Put everything in a box on a shelf and slowly take it down, open the box, and deal with it as it comes but not before.' I heard it and the honest first thought through my head was 'well I get it but some of it can't sit on the box on the shelf'.
       After we returned from Bible study and were getting ready for bed she said 'Put everything in a box on the shelf, only take it down when it is time for that box' to me again as we were discussing my concerns, anxieties, and emotions towards all of the change. This time it stuck to my brain unlike the first time she had said it. After we both headed to bed I had some time to think about what she had said and physically drew boxes, labeled each one with the event, moment,or concern and put them in the order of which they are allowed to be opened. Each box has its place and its time to be opened. Each event has its place to be enjoyed, celebrated, and lived out to the fullest. Most of the events I will be experiencing in the next 4 months will only happen once, they will only occur at this point in my life right out of college, unsure of what is going to hit me after graduation.
       As I thought more I realized this is the piece I have been missing for a few days. My perspective had been turned upside down in only a way stress and anxiety can cause. Everything I have worked for over the last few years to calm those anxieties, emotions, and fears was eluding me because I wasn't open to letting them in. I was closed to anything that would remind me not everything has a reason, not everything needs to be planned, and not everything (actually nothing) will work out the way you planned it all out in your head a thousand times before it happened. It's perspective, acknowledgment, acceptance, and self love that will allow me to work through each transition in the next few months and it is my job to live each moment to the fullest. It is my job to love myself and acknowledge this is not going to be easy every step of the way but rather it is going to be a mess. A mess that happens to be called life. A beautiful life that is filled with boxes that belong on the shelf until it is time for them to be opened so new adventures can be experienced. Enjoy the adventure you are in right now, not the one you will experience tomorrow, that is for tomorrows enjoyment.