Just a a few days ago we passed the Q1 finish line. Quarters of the year, related to business, have never been something I’ve paid attention to. The nature of my old jobs and the arrangement of my place within my old teams gave me no reason to even consider them. Now, holidays like Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day? Yes, all over those — but quarters and projections and bottom line goals? Never.

At the end of a recent session, my counselor joked with me that I’m now an entrepreneur. Never, ever, I told her, have I seen myself in that way. Never, ever, I told her, did I ever consider I would be. But here I am, a handful of days into Q2 and taking stock of what’s just happened. All facts point to the truth that I’ve survived four full months outside what was a safe nest of bimonthly paychecks and benefits. Now, four months in a 40-year career is a blip on the radar. However, four months of day-to-day living? That’s not nothing.

Between announcing my departure at work and leaving last fall, I ran the same defenses in my mind: I have savings I can lean on until I start making money. I have no dependents. My bills are minimal. If not now, when? Even still, with all those fine points, the fact remained that I was leaping off a cliff and wondering what or who would catch me. In sitting with that fear, I could sense how deeply I crave security. Wanting to feel safe is a natural and fair desire for anyone. Our minds and bodies are wired to sense and protect us from danger. And here I am, willingly leaping off a cliff, not knowing how and where, even when I’ll land.

As these conversations when round and round my head last fall, there’s a scene from the third Indiana Jones movie that often came to mind. You may already know what I’m about to say: Indy must cross an invisible bridge to get to the other side of what’s essentially a ravine in a cave. He realizes the only why to find it is to literally step out into what appears to be nothing. To the rational brain and seeing eye, there’s an obvious danger: nothing seems to be there and he may very well fall to his death. However, he thinks he’s understood the clues he’s been given. So, he steps out and discovers what he hoped: the bridge will appear when he takes the first fearful step. You literally watch him put his hand to his heart before he steps out, bracing for what might happen next.

I left my job last November not ready to say what I wanted to do next. I told most everyone I’d travel and then see once I got back. Comforted by the booming job market, that was somewhat true. Really, though, I knew what I wanted to do: build a work situation that supports two key ways I want to live: 1) free to go and experience the world and 2) available to show up for others no matter the day or time. I’m now comfortable saying I feel from deep within a hope and dream to build a life that supports these two things — and I’m okay with giving up the security of knowing exactly when and how much money is dropping into my bank account every month to do it. (And let me acknowledge also, that I know I have and continue to benefit from tremendous privileges including parents who paid for my education which allowed me to save and take this leap. And, as much as I want to make this leap on my own, they’ve assured me they’ll always be there if I need them.)

Was I fully prepared to not have a single paying job by the time we reached April? Yes, I was. Did I entertain fears that I would drain my savings of every single dollar and have to plead for a full-time job anywhere I could find? Yes, I did. Never have I considered the birds of the air and the flowers of the field more, as Jesus talks about them, than in these past few months. I’m incredibly grateful to be looking around, taking stock and realizing I haven’t fallen to the bottom of the ravine. In fact, I’ve paid my rent and bills the last two months fully from money I made on freelance jobs. I have a ways to go to reach my longterm goals, but here I am. I have what I need and I’m making it day by day, month by month. I am looking at the birds of the air and telling myself I am deeply loved.

I’ve spend a lot of time these last three months looking around at how so many of my friends seem to be set up on a track that will deliver them securely to the future. (This, I know, is incredibly unfair on multiple levels, impossible to actually know and ignorant of the fact that life is a mystery and we never know what may lay ahead … but alas, it is how the mind thinks.) I worry for the millionth time in my life that I am behind. Here’s the thing about both those lines of thinking, though: I can’t live anyone’s life but my own. I made a leap I needed to make. I could feel it from deep within — and it had been in there, waiting on me, for a couple of years. In fact, I can trace it back to this Instagram post from August 2019. I remember exactly how I felt then and, what’s more, can honestly draw a line at least one year further back to when I first started feeling them.

So finally (or maybe in the fullness of time?) I made the leap and guess who has caught me? God in His kindness. He is showing up in the generosity of offers for work. He’s providing in small things like responses to emails about potential writing jobs. He is opening the window of freedom to travel and reminding me to keep listening to the call I’ve heard for so long from within. We are building something new. How exciting, right? Terrifying, yes — but also wildly thrilling and stubbornly hopeful that life is too rich and vibrant and spacious to not keep after.

Last night, I laid in a hammock watching the sky fade from light to dark. The trees right above my head showed signs of spring with tiny green buds puckering and pressing out their branches. On the next tree over I caught sight of a bird gliding to one of the highest branches, a branch young enough that it swayed under the bird’s weight and the wind’s push. I watched the bird settle atop the tree and I heard God tell me that bird was like me — finding a new nest to call home.

I am incredibly grateful for my former full-time job. It was such a safe place to be and work as I wrestled through tremendous grief. It was a place where I learned more than I could have even imagined on my first day. It’s a place where I gained significant relationships. And it’s also a place where my heart broke. It’s a place where I grew and grew until the nest was full up. It’s a place that I needed to move on from. All of those realities can exist together. I am grateful for what it was and relieved to have made the leap. Just like the bird that took flight after resting atop the tree.

Wow, what a leap.