Stef Kay

Someone asked me recently what I’m doing now. They knew I recently left my job at a start-up.

I had a rehearsed answer ready. Something about doing what I need to pay the bills while I figure out what’s next. It sounded reasonable. A good answer for an acquaintance with whom I didn’t care to share too much.

But walking away, I thought about what I didn’t say. That I’m standing in a hallway between two chapters and I don’t know how long I’ll be here. That the door behind me is closed and I’m not going back through it. That I can see several doors in front of me, and any of them could work, and that’s exactly what makes this so hard.

I think we all find ourselves here at some point. Big transitions, whether by choice or by force, land us in this hallway. Life poses an invitation: choose your own adventure.

I assumed I’d know which door was mine. One would feel aligned. The others wouldn’t. Easy.

But if any of them could work and none feel quite aligned, how do you decide?

There’s the practical door: go back to corporate, trade time for stability. There’s the ambitious door: build something of my own, bet on myself, but stay in the same line of work where I know I can succeed. There’s the unpredictable door: figure out what I actually love to do, money be damned. Because I know I don’t love what I do anymore. And maybe never did.

And then there’s a door I can only make out the outline of. One I believe will come into focus if I stop forcing it.

I used to be someone who rushed. Always in a hurry to get somewhere, even when I didn’t know where. Now I’m standing still. Untethered. A little lost by my old standards.

But I’m starting to wonder if the hallway isn’t a place to push through. Maybe it’s where I’m supposed to be. Maybe the right door doesn’t appear until I stop rehearsing answers and start telling myself the truth.