When “Enough” Still Feels Empty: Sitting in the Ache of What’s Next

I have a book.
I have a PhD.
I have a story that’s been told and one that’s still unfolding.

And yet, tonight I sit here… unsettled. Aching in a place I can’t quite name. Not broken—but buzzing with this low hum of unfinished.

It’s strange, isn’t it? To reach milestones that once felt so impossible—unreachable, even—and still feel like something is missing. It’s not ingratitude. I’m proud of how far I’ve come. I remember the girl who once prayed for a fraction of this life. And still… there’s a hollowness after the high. A “what now?” that doesn’t come with a manual.

After she told her story, something cracked open in me. I felt alive, purposeful, seen. Like, yes—this is it. This is what I’m meant to do. But now? The quiet came back. The adrenaline faded. The inbox is full of reminders, the calendar packed—but none of it feels like it. None of it fills the space that opened inside me.

Maybe it’s purpose withdrawal. Maybe it’s my soul whispering that I’m not done yet—not even close. Maybe it’s God reshuffling things behind the curtain, getting ready to launch me into the next season. Or maybe… maybe this ache is the next step. Sitting in the discomfort. Letting the restlessness say what it needs to say.

Because growth doesn’t always look like movement. Sometimes it looks like waiting. Stretching. Surrendering.
Sometimes it looks like listening to the part of you that says, “There’s more.” Not in a hustle-for-worthiness kind of way, but in a deeply sacred knowing that you were made to build things. To shake things. To speak life into the spaces where silence has won for too long.

So if you’re like me—sitting with the ache, questioning what’s next, holding your achievements in one hand and your emptiness in the other—know this:
You’re not lost.
You’re not behind.
You’re just becoming.

This in-between is holy ground. And you don’t need to have the next step figured out to be exactly where you’re meant to be.

Let the silence stretch. Let the ache breathe. Let the next thing come in its time.

And until it does?
You keep showing up—unfinished, unfulfilled, and still wildly ready.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is wait with your hands open.

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