I Don't Know What I'm Going to Write About

And it's okay to not know.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I’m here at the computer for the fifth week in a row, for my fifth post. Usually I have some idea beforehand of what I want to say. Not today.

I yawn. Sinking deeper into slowness, into presence. Trusting that it’s okay to not know.

Ooh, is that a phrase I’ve been struggling with. Being okay with not knowing.

I remember towards the end of high school, my friend and I were discussing our futures. She had a plan for the whole thing: go to college, get a job in design, get married by 27, buy a house, have her first kid by by 30, have her 2nd by 33. Something like that.

I remember my mouth being wide open as she described it. I couldn’t even imagine my life a year from now. I didn’t even know what I wanted to major in. My plan was just to wing it. “I can’t imagine that,” she said.

And she went on to do exactly what she planned to do. Amazing.

And I went on to… make it up as I went. Several months into my first year at UCLA, I took an intro to Sociology class and decided it was fascinating enough to major in. My second year, my brother convinced me to join our student government President’s office internship. The combination of the two politicized me, and I went on to do nonprofit electoral mobilizing work after graduation. I didn’t even know that was a thing before college. I don’t know how I could have known.

At this point in my life, having given up full time “job/career” work to pursue the infinitely unknowable path of a creative entrepreneur, I’ve gotten pretty used to not knowing what the future will hold. I can pay my bills now, more or less. Will I be able to in the future? I don’t know.

I love my co-op home of 15 people, but how long will we live together? I don’t know. Will I find a romantic life partner? Will I create a shared life with a soul family? Will I/the unknowable we have children? I don’t know.

How do I deal with all the uncertainty? I guess I have a lot of trust that it’s all working out as it’s meant to. This trust only exists because time and time again, I’ve been guided to the right next thing, in what feels like a miraculous divine intervention. The community home I’m in now in Berkeley feels like such a perfect fit, it’s like we were meant for each other. The home before that in Hollywood felt that way too, until it wasn’t anymore. These places presented themselves to me at exactly the right time - when I dove off a cliff (or was pushed), they appeared out of the ether to catch me.

I still feel scared and anxious much of the time. What if I try and I fail to support myself fully financially with my passions? What if I end up alone? What if I want kids and don’t get them? Or what if I have them and regret it?

And the collective is experiencing instability and unknowingness beyond anything we’ve seen before. The future feels less and less predictable. What if the US becomes an authoritarian regime? What if climate change destroys the planet?

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Marveling at how when I type all those fears out, I feel like I’m being swept up in a tidal wave of paralyzing fear. But writing them out also helps me dis-identify from them.

Letting myself be paralyzed by fear isn’t what I choose to do. I choose to keep going, one moment, one day at a time, listening for and following what feels right. Hard things happen, and miracles continue to unfold.

I’m actively writing the story. It’s okay to not know what comes next. Actually, it feels more fun that way.

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….Okay, I thought I was done with the post but then I was reading my old blog and found this post from 2012, when little Akemi/Kelly was fresh out of college!

The Linear Path

TL;DR is that I was raging against the notion that after college suddenly there isn’t an obvious next step to follow, but we’re so scared to be in uncertainty that we head straight for grad school or to a career that we don’t even know if we want. And then I declared that I wouldn’t let my decisions be fear-driven, and that I would step off the linear path, take risks, and learn and grow as much as possible.

I think my 22 year old self would be thrilled to see how 12 years later, I’ve been doing exactly that, and I’ve learned and grown and experienced more awe and connection and magic than I ever could have imagined. Here’s to thrilling our younger selves!