Once a month I spend a couple of hours with a small and intimate group of women. We are all in recovery from alcohol, but we aren’t there because of that addiction. Instead, we are there to talk about life. To talk about our individual journeys, to share joy and sorrow, to support and to listen. All of us are in our 70’s save for the one we affectionately call “the baby.” At the age of 67 she may actually be a toddler or even a pre-teen, but you get the idea.
The passage of time, and the shortness of our remaining time, does not escape our attention. My friend Jinx shared that as she approaches her 75th year she has come to truly understand that now is the time to do what she needs or wants to do, to see people she cares about, to accept that most of her life is behind her, and that what is ahead must be honored, cherished and lived. In other words, Jinx has a plan, albeit perhaps a loose one, but a plan nevertheless. A plan for action.
But what about me? When my friends asked me what was going on with me, I answered without thinking “I’m in the in-between.” I don’t think I had ever heard or read of that particular phrase – the in-between – it just popped out of my subconscious and jumped off the end of my tongue. But as often happens when the deep Soul has grasped a truth, the answer burst forth to grab my attention and to make me think.
The in-between is a quiet place, at least most of the time. It has little energy. Action in the in-between requires a concerted effort. Time is slow, often boring, interest in doing is mostly absent. Food has little taste, and nothing sounds good – neither food, entertainment, social activity, or much of anything really. It is a time when, for me, creativity is hard to find.
The in-between can exist in one’s life for lots of reasons and at many different points in one’s life journey. The in-between is neither good nor bad. It just is. And it is the result of life happening. In my case, the in-between appeared because five months ago I became a widow.
My life seems divided now. The life before I was a widow, and the life that has yet to reveal itself moving forward. I have a wish for that future life, a vision for that future life, but that life, whatever it turns out to be, is in the future.
Right now, I am in the in-between.
It occurred to me that the in-between may best be described as a waiting room. There are usually a couple of doors in a waiting room. A door by which one enters, and maybe another door by which one exits, and then often a couple of other doors leading to inner hallways and other rooms. If it’s a waiting room we haven’t ever been in before, we probably won’t have any accurate idea about what is beyond the inner doors including the rooms beyond.
So here I am. In the in-between. The waiting room of my current life. It’s a strange place, but not particularly uncomfortable. I have reluctantly come to accept that when I move out of the in-between towards the next part of my life is not entirely up to me. I can perhaps help chart the course, but unless I am the sole participant, then I’m not in control of the timing, or, frankly, the destination. And as I wrote the last sentence I started laughing, because even if I were the sole participant, control of one’s life is an illusion.
My decisions, my choices, in the in-between have become clear to me – a revelation Jinx’s words helped crystalize. Time is shorter than I would like; what people think about me doesn’t matter anymore; I have spent 71 years taking care of others, doing what is expected of me, being a “good girl” and meeting someone else’s expectations.
The in-between won’t last forever. I’ll be ready when it’s over. But for now, I rest.