Navigating Nowhere: Embracing the Uncertainty of Being One Yes Away

I am standing in a place that feels like nowhere. 

Nowhere carries the weight of nothingness. It is obscurity, uncertain, difficult to understand, yet familiar all the same.

Being nowhere in life is a waiting room of sorts, except I am not patiently postured, quietly waiting for my name to be called so I can wander through the mysterious locked door to experience the next best thing for my life. Instead, I’m boisterous, upset, pacing the floor, glaring at the clock, incessantly checking my inbox for my next yes. 

I have sat in this waiting room before. Stark, sticky white walls, air frigid and dense, fluorescent lights piercing my blue eyes, forcing me to squint my gaze to the floor. I sit, then I stand, then I pace, then I look at the clock again. I am restless. Is it time yet? When was my appointment scheduled for? Maybe I am in the wrong waiting room. God, are you sure? The only reply is my incessant, rowdy questions echoing in the quiet.

I am annoyed with myself, with this tension I feel within me. I wish I could sit down, be still, shut up—stop already. I wish I did not wonder so much, worry so much. Standing in a place that feels like nowhere, I must fight every urge in my bones to remind myself, I am only one yes away.

That’s the thing about yes. A yes is ethereal. A yes can transport us to a new dimension in our lives. Every time I have said yes (at least most of the time), it has led to a new experience of wonder, opportunity, awe. ‘Yes’ to a date, and I married my best friend. ‘Yes’ to Texas, and all my Chip and Joanna dreams came true. ‘Yes’ to an adventure, and I wind up wandering a remote European village, gorging on the best jam-filled croissant of my life. I love saying yes, hearing yes, but lately, life has been filled with mostly no’s, or not right nows, or not yets. 

My trouble is in knowing I am one yes away. I know it is close by, in the neighborhood but not quite at my front door yet. Perhaps I can force it to arrive a little sooner, or stalk it live on my phone like I do my UberEats order. As of late, I have been wondering, pondering, scheming—trying to figure out how I can rush my next yes. Perhaps a little push here, a shove there. I am pushing and shoving my way through the day, trying to tackle my way toward that next yes. If I am being honest, I am tired from it. Not tired in my body, but tired in my heart. Delayed hope makes the heart sick sort of thing. I am hoping for good things, waking up to humidity and deafening cicadas, when all I want is a jam-filled croissant in a remote European village. It feels like one thing after another, even worse, no thing after another. After a while, a girl gets tired of waiting, you know? 

I am tired of waiting, tired of wondering what I am doing with my life, tired of being afraid because I really do not know the answer with certainty. I want the answer, now. I want change, now. I want opportunity, now. I want clarity, now. I want my next yes, right now. 

Yet somehow, right now still feels like nowhere. I need specificity. I need to know I am on the right path, walking the right direction, in the right waiting room, so to speak. Nowhere makes me feel unsure of who I am, if I am going the right way. I wonder if my life, and what I have done with it, will mean anything at all. I am terrified and excited, holding space for my fear and my forged hope. Not forged like a bad check, but forged as in slow and steady. It is a strange place, this waiting room in my heart that feels like nowhere.

Anxious and angry. Those would be the two best emotions to describe how I have felt as of late. Everything is almost done, but not quite finished. Life feels like a pending status, and I do not know if my application will be approved, if my name will be called, if I will ever get to walk through that locked door. Perhaps it is less about what I am waiting for, and more about the attitude of how I wait. That is the last thing I want to hear, but I know it to be true.

I do not know if it will all work out, all I see is risk, and I am terrified of it. As I pace the waiting room of life, I am desperately trying to keep my hands from being idle. I cannot quite put my finger on what to pick up and what to put down, so I have got my hands on it all. Simultaneously holding every aspiration, anxiety, and uncertainty, while juggling my marriage, my purpose, my career, grocery shopping, pilates, and everything in between. 

I have always been a “works” girl, in other words, the kind that will do any and everything to make a thing happen. Faith without works and all that biblical jazz. I would hate to miss out on a good thing because I was not doing enough, or trying enough, or putting my nose to the grindstone. I am trying my best, I am doing my best, but the trouble is, I have been mostly works with a failing faith. I have to remember, I am only one yes away. 

To be one yes away is a powerful place, a faithful place, a place that makes me wonder what is next. One yes that could change my life forever. One yes that could reignite my passion. One yes that could filter the fog that has clouded my vision, bringing clarity once again. 

To be one yes away is a terrifying, beautiful place. The waiting room of yes is a place of looming uncertainty and relentless hope. Hope has to be relentless. Outside of hope, what else do I have? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, so if hope is all I have, perhaps right now, it is all I need. 

Hope tells me to hold on, keep going, that it will all work out. Hope encourages me, diffuses my frustration, infuses me with grace. Most importantly, hope calms me. In this quiet trust, I remind myself to breathe. I remember all the hard places I have been before, the challenges I have navigated. I remember the yeses I have given, and the yeses I have received—the transformative moments that have already changed my life. I pull my shoulders out of my ears. I turn my gaze away from my inbox, away from the clock, away from the unanswered questions and the what ifs. I pause, I begin to notice the good around me, notice the prayers that have already been answered, that I am already standing in. I stop pacing. I appreciate. I marvel at the gifts I have already been given. They are abundant. 

Sometimes, the waiting room of nowhere makes me forget how good my life has been, but hope reminds me that I am only one yes away.