The messy middle
You're not alone. We are all doing the best we can.
Today is Easter, the biggest holiday in the Christian calendar, though the stores might tell you differently. I almost didn’t send out a note today. There was a “HAPPY EASTER, MOM!” bellow at 6 a.m., followed by chocolate-covered Peeps (not sure how I feel about those; blasphemy or surprise improvement?), two egg hunts, family brunch, impromptu backyard baseball practice, and the nagging nudge of tax day.
None of the dozen topics swirling in my mind feel done. They haven’t yet arrived at a place that feels helpful to share.
But then I remembered that acknowledging the muddling middle — rather than some tied-up-with-a-bow declaraction — can be incredibly helpful.
Oh, golly, the middle.
In medias res.
We’re all here.
Hello!
We could use companionship in the mucky middle. The reminder that we are all floundering around a bit around in the modern mental wonderings of how to be a good parent and what to do with our career and which forgotten chore needs attention next and what is happening in Ukraine and when do we get around to reconnecting with far-off friends and oh golly schedule that overdue appointment, refill that prescription, learn to meditate.
Let’s sit with our incompletion for a bit.
I’m right here with you.
Yup. Here we are.
In the middle of the books of our lives.
Totally incomplete.
Totally no idea what will come next.
Totally doing the best we can.
A quote pops into my head, one I heard recently on a Tim Ferriss Show podcast, by astrophysicist Janna Levin:
“I used to resent obstacles along the path, thinking, ‘If only that hadn’t happened, life would be so good.’ Then I suddenly realized, life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path.”
This feels like one of those simple ideas that my brain (and stomach) can’t quite entirely digest, like the idea of infinite pi or the plumbing system of 8 million New Yorkers.
There is no underlying path.
If that’s true, we can never stray from our path.
That illness.
That bout in the hospital.
That operation.
That job that wasn’t a good fit.
That XYZ that didn’t get done.
That decision that sparked regret.
All just part of the path.
None of it was a step outside of the path.
I don’t mean this in the sense of fate or “everything happens for a reason.”
Just that, well, we are all on our journeys. Obstacles are as inevitable as clouds. Whatever we meet along the way — the monsters and the wildflowers and the snakes and the hurricane and the butterflies — it’s all part of our path. And here we are, on any given day, somewhere between the poison ivy and the chocolate bunny.
We are in the messy, gorgeous, annoying, incredible middle. We are all doing the best we can. Here I go, clicking send, and sending a 2022 version of a telegram to someone on the other side of the virtual fence. Hi, there!
Happy Easter, if you celebrate, and Happy Spring to all of us. (Well, except those in the Southern Hemisphere — Happy Autumn to you! Different paths, you know.)
Let me know if you spy anything interesting on your path this week. I’ll see you back here on Wednesday.
To our journeys,
Brianne
I really love this! This line feels so accurate: "We are in the messy, gorgeous, annoying, incredible middle." Life is all those things and it's always nice to be reminded that I'm not the only one that feels like there are a million things swirling all at once-- none of them quite complete or where I want them to be.
Also, about those Peeps... I didn't know they come covered in chocolate now?! Does seem to take away from some of the neon-colored sugar charm, and yet I do love a chocolate covered marshmallow. Tough call, that one.