Maybe you're waiting for an answer.
A phone call,
An email.
A decision.
A result.
A conversation that hasn't happened yet.
Maybe something in your life is changing.
And you don't quite know what it's changing into.
Good job.
A relationship.
Your home,
Your finances.
A plan you thought was settled.
A future you thought you could picture.
And tonight,
Your mind keeps running ahead of you.
Trying to see around a corner you simply cannot see around yet.
What if this happens?
What if that happens?
What will they say?
What if the answer is no?
What if everything changes?
What if nothing changes?
There are so many questions.
And perhaps the hardest part.
Is that none of them can be answered tonight.
So if you're lying here wishing you could just know.
Stay here with me for a while.
You don't have to know tonight.
I'm Tara,
And this is Words to Hold You.
A quiet place for emotional reassurance when your mind won't rest.
One human heart.
Speaking gently to another.
Is a particular kind of tiredness that comes from uncertainty.
When there's something practical to do,
At least you can do it.
Make the call,
Write the email,
Make the decision.
But uncertainty asks something different of us.
It asks us to live for a while without the answer.
And that can be surprisingly difficult.
Because the mind likes to complete things.
It likes to know where it stands.
It likes to say.
This is what is happening.
This is what it means.
And this is what comes next.
And sometimes.
Life simply refuses to provide the labels.
Perhaps that's where you are tonight.
Somewhere between the question and the answer and your mind is trying very hard to close the distance.
It rehearses possibilities.
It builds one future.
And then another.
It prepares for disappointment.
Then,
It prepares for hope.
Then it warns you not to hope too much.
It says.
Surely if we think hard enough,
We can know.
But some things cannot be known early.
No amount of thinking tonight can make tomorrow arrive sooner.
No amount of worrying.
You can make the email appear.
No amount of prediction.
Can turn uncertainty into fact.
Maybe you're waiting to hear about a job.
And your mind has already lived through both outcomes.
Or perhaps you're waiting to know where you stand with someone.
And the silence feels so much louder at night.
And maybe.
You would feel so much better.
If somebody could simply tell you how it turns out,
Of course you would.
Wanting to know.
Does not mean you're weak.
It means you're human.
Especially when what you were waiting for matters.
So we're not going to pretend that you shouldn't care.
And we're not going to force you to feel calm about something that genuinely feels important.
Perhaps.
We can do something gentler.
We can allow it to matter.
Without requiring you to solve it tonight.
This matters to me.
And I don't know yet.
Maybe the little word yet.
Can help.
But not as a promise that everything will work out exactly as you hoped.
But as a reminder that this moment.
Is not the whole story.
You are in the middle of something.
And middles are often untidy places.
Nothing has gone wrong because the answer is not visible.
Sometimes.
A new direction becomes clear one ordinary step at a time.
We know what came before.
We don't know what comes after.
So the mind tries to write the missing pages itself.
And because it's trying to protect you.
It often writes the frightening versions first.
What if I lose this?
What if they leave?
What if I cannot manage what comes next?
Perhaps your mind believes that if it shows you every difficult possibility in advance,
You will somehow be safer.
But imagining pain in advance.
Does not always protect us from pain.
Sometimes it simply asks us to feel something difficult.
Before we even know whether it's going to happen.
You don't have to live tomorrow's disappointment tonight.
And you don't have to live tomorrow's relief tonight either.
Tonight has enough to hold.
Perhaps your mind says.
But I need to be prepared.
All right,
Perhaps you already are.
Because preparation has a finishing point.
The application is sent.
The words have been said.
The decision.
Is in somebody else's hands.
After that.
.
.
Continuing to think.
Is not always preparation.
Sometimes.
It's simply waiting in disguise.
You're allowed to stop.
The situation will not become less important because you sleep.
You will not lose your place in the story because you rest.
Whatever is coming will still know where to find you.
There's a difference between giving up.
And letting go of what was never yours to control.
You can care deeply and still loosen your grip.
You can hope.
And still rest.
You can be afraid.
And still rest.
You can not know.
And still rest.
Maybe you've been telling yourself.
I'll relax when I know.
When they reply,
When the decision is made,
When the results come.
When I know where I'm going.
And perhaps that answer will come tomorrow.
Or next week.
Or later than you would like.
Must you stay braced until then?
Perhaps not.
Peace does not mean you have stopped caring.
It does not mean you have decided everything will be fine.
It simply means that for this moment,
You're not asking yourself to carry what has not happened.
There is enough right here.
This bag.
This world.
This night.
This breath arriving without needing to know anything about tomorrow.
Your body is here.
Even if your mind has travelled far ahead.
Perhaps you can let yourself come back from all those possible futures.
Not forever,
Just for now.
Think of how many things you once worried might happen that never did.
How many conversations you prepared for that went differently.
How many endings you imagined?
That were not the ending.
How many times life surprised you.
Not always pleasantly,
But differently.
Because life holds more than your mind can calculate from here.
Other people change their minds.
Circumstances shift.
New information arrives.
Door is closed.
And other doors appear that you did not even know existed.
The you who meets whatever comes next will not be exactly the you lying here tonight.
You will know more then.
And you can respond to what is real.
You don't have to respond tonight to 10 imaginary futures.
Just one life.
As it actually arrives.
You've met uncertainty before.
Maybe not gracefully every time.
Maybe not without tears.
But there were mornings you could not picture.
And somehow.
You arrived in them.
Not because you had everything worked out beforehand.
You simply met the day when it came.
And perhaps there's something in life itself that has been carrying you through all of it.
Quiet support.
That has not gone anywhere.
Perhaps you can trust that much tonight.
I know everything will go my way.
Maybe something quieter.
I trust the process of life.
I trust that I can meet what comes when it comes.
You have resources that uncertainty sometimes makes you forget.
Your ability to adapt.
To ask for help.
To think again.
To be disappointed and yet continue.
To begin again when you need to.
You don't have to know every step to take the next one.
And tonight.
The next step.
May simply be to rest.
Perhaps you worry that if you relax,
You'll be caught off guard.
As though staying tense keeps you ready.
But rest doesn't take your wisdom away.
Sleep.
Does not make you less capable.
You're allowed to replenish yourself before life asks for your answer.
Waiting can feel passive,
But it does not have to feel empty.
Your life.
Is still happening while you wait.
You're still here.
Still breathing.
Still deserving of comfort.
Still allowed to laugh at something.
Still allowed to eat something lovely.
Still allowed to sleep.
You do not have to place your whole life in a waiting room until one answer arrives.
The answer can be important without becoming everything.
So what if tonight?
You stepped out of the waiting room for a while.
You will not miss your turn.
You can leave the question unattended.
It does not need watching.
And perhaps there's another kind of uncertainty here.
Not waiting for news,
But knowing that life itself is changing.
Maybe something that used to feel solid no longer does.
A role you had.
A relationship.
A routine,
A version of you.
You know something has ended.
But the new shape has not yet appeared.
We often want to rush through that place.
Name the next chapter,
Make the new plan.
Become the new version of ourselves immediately.
But perhaps you don't have to.
There can be a space between.
A space where you are not who you were.
And do not yet know who you are becoming.
Right here.
Between.
Not lost.
Between.
Last says.
I should know where I'm going and I don't.
Between,
Says.
Something has not revealed itself yet.
Perhaps tonight you can choose the kinder word.
You're not failing because you cannot see the whole road.
You're simply standing in the part that is visible now.
You're allowed not to have the five-year plan tonight.
You're allowed not to know where it's going.
You're allowed not to know how it will feel six months from now.
You are allowed to be here.
And that is enough.
Maybe your mind is already asking again,
Yes,
But what do you think will happen?
We're not going to answer it.
Not because the question is silly.
But simply because we don't know.
And tonight.
Perhaps we can stop treating.
I don't know.
As an emergency.
I don't know.
There it is.
Nothing collapsed.
I don't know.
I'm still here.
I don't know and for this moment I am safe enough to rest.
Maybe that's all uncertainty needs from us sometimes,
Not an answer.
A little less resistance to the absence of one.
You don't have to like not knowing.
You don't have to become wonderfully serene about it.
You can simply stop fighting it for tonight.
Perhaps your shoulders can carry a little less now.
Not because you've made them relax.
Just because there is one last job to do.
You are no longer responsible for finding tonight an answer that does not exist yet.
That job has been cancelled.
If the information has not arrived.
It has not arrived.
There is nothing hidden in your own mind that you miss.
You can stop searching yourself for it.
And when the question returns,
What happens next?
Perhaps.
The answer can simply be.
I'll know when I know.
Not impatiently.
Not dismissively.
Gently.
And until then.
I'm still alive to live.
I'm still allowed to rest.
I'm still allowed to have this night.
Perhaps we can make the words simpler now.
Nothing to understand.
Nothing to sell.
Just a few words to keep you company and hold you as the questions grow quieter.
You don't have to repeat them.
Let the ones you need stay and let the others pass.
I don't have to know tonight.
I can let the unanswered questions.
.
.
Remain unanswered.
I have done what I can for today.
What is not mine to decide can rest outside my hands.
I don't need tomorrow's answers tonight.
I can care without keeping watch.
I can hope without holding on too tightly.
I can let other people make their own decisions.
I can let life move without supervising it.
I trust the process of life.
Life is on my side.
What I need to know will reach me at the right time.
I don't have to visit every possible future.
I only have to be here.
I have met uncertainty before.
I can trust myself to respond when there's something real to respond to.
I can be between things without being lost.
I can be unfinished.
I can begin again if I need to.
I am safe in this moment.
This moment.
Is enough.
This night is enough.
I am enough without having all the answers.
All is well.
I'll know when I know.
And until then.
.
.
Bye.
Can rest.
Perhaps the question is still there.
And that's alright.
We were never trying to make it disappear.
We were only giving you permission.
Not to answer it.
The future has not forgotten you.
Whatever comes next will come close enough for you to meet it when it arrives.
You don't have to go out into the darkness looking for it.
You can stay here.
And let tomorrow travel toward you for a change.
There's nothing more you need to know tonight.
Nothing more you need to decide.
Nothing more you need to prepare.
For now.
You can rest here.
You don't have to know tonight.
Good night.
