I have spent an impressive amount of my life pretending I knew what I was doing. Not in a fraudulent way. More in the very human, “Sure, yes, absolutely, I have a plan” way, while privately standing in the kitchen eating something over the sink and wondering what fresh hell was happening next.
I suspect I’m not alone.
We are taught to think clarity comes first. First you know what you want. Then you make the plan. Then you confidently walk toward the future like a woman in a pharmaceutical commercial, smiling into the middle distance while a golden retriever trots beside you.
Except life does not generally work that way.
Sometimes clarity comes later. Sometimes much later. Sometimes you are already halfway down the road before you realize you’ve been finding your way all along.
The Map Has Gone Missing
There are moments in life when the path ahead feels obvious. And then there are the other ones.
The breakup. The diagnosis. The job that disappears. The relationship that changes. The child who needs you. The dream that stops fitting. The body that suddenly behaves like it has joined a union and is refusing all further cooperation.
The moment when the life you thought you were building simply stops being available to you.
In November of 2020, that happened to me in a fairly spectacular fashion. I was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. Not the gentle, “let’s keep an eye on this” variety.
Cancer had spread to my bones. Vertebrae and ribs fractured. My body, which had carried me through decades of dancing, yoga, motherhood, travel, work, and general mischief, became unfamiliar territory almost overnight.
Everything changed. There were infusions. Radiation. Pain. Fear. Grief. Rage. A lot of waiting rooms. And a truly unreasonable number of people asking me to rate things on a scale of one to ten.
The life I thought I was living was gone.
I did not have a map.
The Funny Thing About Being Lost
A year after my diagnosis, I had the Vegvísir tattooed on my arm.
The Vegvísir is an Icelandic magical stave often called the Wayfinder, traditionally associated with finding one’s way through rough weather.
I didn’t get it because I believed a symbol would somehow steer me around every storm. I got it because by then, I had learned something far more important:
I would find my way.
And when I looked back over my life, I realized I always had. Through heartbreak and reinvention. Through motherhood and moves and relationships and endings. Through the moments when I knew exactly what I was doing, and the considerably more numerous moments when I absolutely did not.
Cancer didn’t give me that ability. It simply made it impossible for me to keep overlooking it.
By the time I chose the Vegvísir, it wasn’t a wish. It was evidence. A reminder inked into my skin that I didn’t need to know exactly where I was going to trust that I could navigate what came next.
Finding your way does not mean knowing where you’re going. It means continuing to listen when you don’t.
That’s different.
We Are Obsessed With Certainty
We love certainty because uncertainty is wildly inconvenient.
We want to know: Is this relationship going to work? Should I take the job? Should I leave? Should I stay? Will the money come? Is this the right idea? What if I screw this up? What happens next?
I get it. I ask these questions too.
I have built a large part of my life around intuition and divination, for heaven’s sake. I am extremely interested in what happens next.
But I have also learned that intuition is not always a booming voice from the heavens saying:
CRISANN. TURN LEFT AT THE STARBUCKS.
Often it is quieter than that.
It is the idea you keep returning to. The person you cannot stop thinking about. The sudden sense of relief when you imagine one choice instead of another. The thing you know before you can explain why you know it.
It’s the strange little breadcrumb that appears at exactly the right moment. The conversation. The book. The dream. The invitation. The no. The yes. The tiny flicker of aliveness.
We often dismiss these things because they do not look impressive enough to be guidance. But guidance is rarely interested in being impressive.
It is interested in getting your attention.
You Do Not Need the Whole Road
This is the part I wish more people understood.
You do not need a five-year plan. You do not need perfect confidence. You do not need certainty. You do not need to know how the whole thing turns out.
You need enough clarity for the next honest step.
That’s it.
Sometimes that step is enormous. Sometimes it is sending the email. Making the appointment. Ending the relationship. Starting the business. Applying for the thing. Buying the ticket. Saying yes. Saying no.
Sometimes it is getting out of bed.
Sometimes finding your way looks suspiciously like resting.
I think we underestimate the importance of the next small true thing because we are so busy trying to see the entire road. But roads are rarely revealed that way.
They appear beneath your feet.
Three Questions for When You Feel Lost
When everything feels noisy, I come back to a few simple questions.
What do I already know?
Not what am I afraid of. Not what do other people think. Not what would make everyone else comfortable.
What do I know?
There is often more information underneath the panic than we realize.
What feels like relief?
This is one of my favorites.
When you imagine one option, does your whole body clench? When you imagine another, do your shoulders drop half an inch?
Pay attention.
Relief is information.
What is the next true thing?
Not the grand plan. Not the perfect outcome.
The next thing.
What can you do today that feels aligned with who you are becoming?
Start there.
I Don’t Think We Are Meant to Have All the Answers
I used to think wisdom meant knowing. Now I think wisdom has a lot more to do with listening.
Listening to yourself. Listening to your body. Listening to the patterns. Listening to what keeps showing up. Listening to the quiet little voice underneath all the noise that says: This way. Not forever. Not perfectly. Just this way, for now.
Cancer did not give me all the answers.
I am deeply suspicious of any story that tries to turn suffering into a tidy gift basket. Some things are simply terrible. Some things hurt. Some things change us in ways we never would have chosen.
But what I can say is that losing the map forced me to become better acquainted with the compass.
And I trust that compass more now.
Maybe You’re Not Lost
Maybe you are simply between versions of yourself.
Maybe the old road ended because you were never meant to keep walking it. Maybe the reason you cannot see the whole path is because it is still becoming. Maybe you are not supposed to know yet.
There is something deeply uncomfortable about that. There is also something beautiful about it.
Your life is not a finished story. You are allowed to change direction. You are allowed to begin again. You are allowed to become someone you have never been before.
And you are allowed to do all of that without having a clue how the entire thing will unfold.
You just need enough light for the next step. Then the next. Then the next.
That is how we find our way.
Not all at once.
But somehow, eventually, we look back and realize:
There was a path there after all.
You will find your way.
