the middle

This Saturday a number of people will gather to celebrate my cousin’s twin sons upon their graduation from high school. The impulse to celebrate beginnings - engagements, marriages, births, new endeavors of all kinds - is strong in all humans. If we’re lucky, we live in a community that also still honors endings - moves, graduations, deaths, and whatever shape a particular loss’s grief may take.

For this post: what about the time in between, the middle? Life is lived, after all, mostly in the middle.

Today’s thumbnail picture comes from a few weeks ago, when I went for a short hike in Mastodon State Park. Missouri has quite a few bluff trails, which often wind and weave in such a manner you can only see but so far ahead. You have a few choices, when in that situation. You could close your eyes and stumble along, feeling your way along the path. You could strive to try to see around the corner farthest ahead, laser-focused on catching the first sight of the ending. You could recognize you are on a path and instead settle in to see what you pass you as you travel.

I’ve done all three at different points in my life and I would wager you have, too. I’ve chosen to willfully avoid seeing the path I was walking, numbing myself with various addictions that blinded me in the process; I’ve made myself similarly blind by only looking to the outcome or the goal - the pursuit and achievement of it becoming an addiction in and of itself.

Can we hold the tension of these - keeping eyes open to see whatever may be unfolding (even if it scares, bores, or repulses us) while still looking and moving towards the next waypoint? The often-asked question: “Can you remain present?”

I’ve found it helpful to keep American fiction author Annie Dillard’s words close, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

As May draws to a close, what areas are you “in the middle”? Do you have upcoming transitions/celebrations/grievings?

As always: Be well, beautiful people.