The Space In Between

These past couple of months have been a bit of a struggle for me. The struggle being I don’t have a clear path forward. I have had a hard time figuring out where to go from here. As a nation we have been on pause for a few months. I have been in a holding pattern. There’s no going back, that path is quickly disappearing, There’s no going forward yet. It’s as if I am a sailor of a small boat trying to cross the ocean. The waters are rough and the sun it setting. I have taken refuge on an island, I have no control over the water or the wind and will be waiting until the ocean has calmed. While I am suspended in the In Between the world around me is highly active. People are protesting stay at home orders, there is rising tension in Hong Kong and this week in my own state we are having protests and rioting in response to the death of a black man by a police officer. Today businesses in my city are boarding up their stores, big box retailers are closing early and there is increased patrols. It feels like a dam has broke and the wild and angry water is overflowing the banks. I am free floating in the In Between, it is surreal. I think of Billy Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” when I think of the world around me. The In Between is the place after what was and before what will be. We may not be able to envision what will be so the in between can feel chaotic and scary. I was talking to a friend today and she talked about the need to surrender. We aren’t conditioned to surrender so it is a new skill that needs to be learned, it is foreign and wildly uncomfortabe. I am a doer and I like to feel I have control over things. While cocooned in the in between there is no doing or controlling. It is truly a state of surrender and allowing. Resistance if futile, it will only prolong the discomfort. I feel the agitation grow, I want to function on a time line. How long do I have to wait, how long do I have to be patient? Right now it feels indefinite. What am I preparing for? I want to be doing something! But there is nothing to do, there is only surrendering to the process. A process that is unknown to me. So I turn to writing, spending time with my children, baking and getting outside as much as I can. I am growing food, while I tend to the seedlings I also talk to myself hoping to calm the waters of the storms that surge within me. The in between has become a time of praying for we are all in this storm, we are all being called to navigate uncharted waters. While talking to my friend, I shared by inner thoughts. She seemed to have an inner knowing of what I was expressing and in that moment it was like seeing the flashing light of a distant sailor. I was no longer alone in this vast ocean, that gives me courage. I am learning to make peace with the in between, the other option is to spiral downward into darkness and despair. I do not want that so I choose to sit with the in between and befriend it. I choose to become familiar with what is uncomfortable to see where it might lead me.

Peace!