I Don’t Know What’s Next: Loving the Questions

Five months ago, my daughter moved out. After 29 years of being a parent, this chapter has come to a close.
When I started taking selfies, I realized I was lost.
I don’t know what to do with myself.

My house stays clean. There’s barely any laundry. The fridge is full.
I’ve spent decades raising two children, caring for a sick husband, and an aging mother. Now my life is quiet. Still.

I have all this energy — and I don’t know where to direct it.

“I don’t know” is the black water I’m swimming in.

And then I heard these words from Rainer Maria Rilke:

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”

This idea seemed like crazy talk to me.
Having unanswered questions feels like living in a kitchen with dirty dishes and last night’s pasta still in the pot on the stove.

I want to know.
I want answers.
I want clarity, direction, a sense of control.
I want the path to appear — well-lit and obvious.
I want to feel certain that I’m doing it right.
That I’m not wasting time. That I’m not falling behind.

I’ve been like a dog chasing a ball — obsessed with wanting to know.
I exhaust myself, and still I chase.

This morning, on a call with Molly, my partner of Exquisite Being, I explored my need to know — and saw it for what it is:
Trying to know is like picking up one grain of sand with tweezers and thinking I understand the entire beach.

The kind of knowing I chase makes me feel safe, in control… and bored and separate from life.

But not knowing — that’s something different.

Not knowing feels like magic appearing before my eyes.
It brings back my curiosity, my playfulness, my sense of wonder.
It lets life reveal itself as I take each step.

Not knowing is like exploring a foreign country and discovering a wonderful restaurant on a side street.

It’s a balance, this dance between knowing and not knowing.
Too much knowing makes me stale, rigid.
Too much not knowing feels like being adrift at sea in a rowboat.

I want to know if I can pay my mortgage next month —
but I don’t want to know exactly what I’m doing with my life each day.

So I’m taking Rilke’s suggestion — and loving the questions.
Staying with them. Letting life speak in its own time.

The question I’m asking myself is: What is the next chapter of my life?
What wants to come through me that will be rich, fun, and fulfilling?
I don’t know — but standing in these questions feels exhilarating.

This space of not knowing — where one identity falls away and a new one hasn’t yet formed — is something I sit in with many of my clients. Whether it’s after leaving a career, becoming an empty nester, or simply no longer resonating with the life they built, this tender, undefined middle is where we meet.

It’s not about rushing to answers. It’s about learning to trust the unfolding.
And it helps to have someone there who can hold the space while the new shape of your life quietly arrives.

✨ If you're in the in-between and want support discovering what’s next, I’d be honored to walk with you.
👉 Schedule a conversation