My Surprisingly Content Post-Grad Life

finding joy in the in-between seasons

These days, I feel deeply content.

It’s strange because I thought post-graduation, I’d feel the opposite.

I thought I’d be missing my friends every waking moment, constantly reflecting in nostalgia over my college years, and feeling empty inside without the consistent routine of the past four years.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do miss my friends, and I’ve reflected on my college experience here and there during the past week.

But strangely, I don’t feel empty.

Initially, I thought it was because I was still busy.

I’ve spent most of my days at my local coffee shop (shoutout Queen Bee!) cranking out chapters for my book or writing a sermon for my next speaking engagement.

Or I’ve been driving my sisters back and forth to their various extracurriculars and running errands with my mom, helping her prepare for all the big things happening in her life.

Yet later, as I reflected more deeply, I realized I still had plenty of time at home where my mind could wander and think for hours on end if it wanted to.

But it hasn’t.

Rather, I feel so content.

As I sit in the same chair every day at my coffee shop, I feel grateful for the opportunity to write something potentially meaningful and impactful for my generation. I stare in awe at a blank page and the chance to fill it with creativity, beautiful sentences, and rich stories.

As I drive my sisters to school in the early mornings, I feel thankful that they even want me to drive them, and I revel in the quality time we get, even when we’re all groggy. Late at night, when we’re piled on top of each other in my sister’s room, I feel lucky to have this final summer to hug and squeeze them as much as I want before I leave.

As I go from errand to errand in the car with my mom, I can’t help but rejoice that my mom also doubles as my best friend and that hours feel like minutes when I’m with her. I feel immense pride that I get to be her daughter as I witness the leader, friend, and teammate she is to those around her.

And of course, as I text and message my friends from college, I feel utterly blessed to have friends like Libby, who reaches out to me every day to ask how I’m doing and who texts our group chat asking us all to share our highs, lows, and buffaloes so we never miss an update in each other’s lives.

Even as I write all this down, I can’t help but feel overwhelmingly grateful for the life I get to live, even in this season of transition and in-between spaces.

I don’t fully know why I feel all this gratitude right now—because I haven’t always felt this way during seasons like these. Maybe it’s simply the maturity of being a post-grad now (woah). Or maybe I’ve grown deeper in my faith, and this is the result of that. Still, maybe it’s that I’m just incredibly blessed and anyone in my situation would be overwhelmed in gratitude.

Perhaps it’s all three.

I guess I’ve arrived at a point in my life where I no longer dwell and fixate so much on the future and everything I hope will happen.

I used to, a lot. I was always waiting for the next thing—the bigger, better things I believed God always had waiting up His sleeve.

Now, I realize that the God of the future is also the God of right now.

There will never be a future version of God who is better than the One with me in the present.

That’s a sobering, humbling, and hopeful reminder for me.

That right now, in what the world might call a transitional, in-between season, I still get to experience the abundant life Jesus has for us no matter when or where we are.

There are no greater moments than these.

I’m reveling in it all.

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” –Psalm 118:24

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