The In-Between

What if we never see the other side?

Starts, Stops, and Hitting Publish

I’ve started, stopped, deleted and repasted this piece what seems like an annoying amount of times at this point.

In writing this week, I realize there are two audiences we write for. The creative inside ourselves, who has to make the art for the soul to survive (omg how dramatic and hyperbolic - I love it!) and the audience (hopefully you reading this now) who has agreed to let me in your inbox, and therefore your mind.

I have a responsibility to take care of both because they’re in relationship with one another; the care of one cannot exist without the care of the other. And in that mutual care is also the tension, because it’s not all wholly relevant to either, but necessary for both.

I think that’s the lesson this week has meant to integrate. More on that now…

Say what you mean

I had a realization - that word feels too small, really - an epiphany, a paradigm shifting ah-ha, a moment of reflection and acceptance so big it’s changed the way I see life at every turn:

What if - during our collective lifetime (like you and me alive right now) - we never get to fully experience the death of one world, and the full rebirth of another, and we only get to exist in the In-Between?

This is kind of a mind-fuck for me, and maybe you, too. We have been told if you work hard enough, or do the right thing, then the predicted results will follow. And in some ways, many ways, that’s true. The right thing, the collective care, the mutual aid, the love and evolution as a humanity IS shepherding in a new existence. One that, when I’m surrounded by those thinking and dreaming of a new world order, I can see and feel like I’m already there. And also, while we’re dreaming of this world anew, there’s also the reality of the yester-world that still exists, and has its claws in us in a way that we cannot escape - at least not easily.

Things I mean - the new world is emerging where community and mutual aid and collective care could be at the center - however we still live independently in our homes, our own four walls, with our own mortgages and commitments to honor. So, we act in the collective, but still have the reality of the individual.

It’s like we’re living in the potential and hope of a new existence, while still addressing the worst case scenario of the one we’re in today. And I guess, as someone who really likes clean and clear transitions - a strategy - I’ve been grappling with this in-between, and the radical acceptance that perhaps in my lifetime I’ll never see that clean and clear transition.

And, if that’s the case, how do I (we) reorient to progress, accomplishment, satisfaction, success, growth?

It’s all the things that people have been saying for what seems like forever - I suppose cliches are cliches for a reason, after all. It’s the journey, not the destination. It’s progress over perfection. Growth isn’t linear. Yeah yeah yeah - but you know what, I guess on some inner, egomaniac level, I thought if I worked hard enough, was pretty enough, white enough, rich enough, connected enough, educated enough - that I was maybe someone who could outwork the system.

And the reckoning of this moment is that, no, none of us can outwork anything that is rooted in harm. And so, in that acceptance that harm to one is harm to all, and progress to one is progress to all - how might we orient to peace, acceptance, and (God, I hate the overuse of this word, but it feels right) grace within ourselves, versus orienting to the faux-safety that we’ve thought could exist outside of ourselves if we just outworked or over-adapted to the systems around us.

I have a lot of grief in this. Grief that a belief system that underpinned much of my life isn’t true, and how much wasted time and effort expended will never be recouped. Separately, there’s a grief that I wasn’t clever enough to see that what I bought into was a giant fucking lie, and I fell for their tricks. I feel so sad that I wasn’t smart, savvy, enlightened enough to question things to begin with. And the guilt and shame that lies in the version of ourselves we were who we no longer align with, or are proud of. And then the grief that much of these beliefs were so deeply conditioned that we never really had much of a choice to think or feel or be any different.

And grief, I freaking hate grief. I mean I kind of love her now - have learned to out of sheer necessity - but she feels like the most messy, unhinged, unpredictable, and never-fast-enough emotion around. And when she shows up, it’s like that guest you know will never leave on time. You just want to go to bed, or clean up, or watch your favorite show in peace, but instead she sits there on your living room chair edging the conversation along until your eyes want to roll back in your head and you want to scream, “OMG, GO THE FUCK HOME ALREADY!”

Sorry, grief, I’m being kind of an asshole to you. I suppose I did invite you to the party after all. And I can’t be mad when you show up in all your glory.

Now I have grief about being an asshole to grief.

What the In-Between feels like to me.

There’s a version of acceptance, love, patience, gentleness, awareness - that’s emerging. And not just in me, I feel it collectively. I see it when I scroll through art here on Substack, I hear it when I sit with my friends - artists, entrepreneurs, parents - who are saying “this can’t be all, right?,” I feel it in my body when I watch movements and leaders like AOC or Justin Pearson willing to go anti-establishment in the pursuit of humanity.

And yet, I wake up, check my email, pay my bills, figure out groceries and gas, send money to a mother who is escaping a bad situation, sign something for my senators to say ICE is bad, and then input my day into Claude. It’s this dichotomy of feeling the hope of a world not yet realized, and the weight of a world that you know won’t be around much longer - God willing.

And so, if you were to ask me, what I’ve learned in the past 18-ish days, it’s that I am coming to terms with the reality that I may never see the birth or death of either; but rather live in the in-between - what I’m calling the composting - and can I find peace and even freedom in the knowledge that life and death take time, and there’s no amount of effort, money, education, or hustle that will change the trajectory of time?

I already hear the haters. And by haters, maybe I mean my own demons in my own mind - which for anyone (aka everyone) that has them, you know they can be the cruelest of all.

You’re giving up. If you don’t work like there’s a tangible end state in view, then there never will be. We have to fight like it matters, because it does. And it’s ours to push over the line.

You’re being hyperbolic. Life isn’t even that bad for you; stop acting like it is. You can pay your bills, feed your family, and are safe in your own corner of the world, so stop acting like you’re not.

Things are better than they used to be. Every generation has their own fight. This is just yours. We still have so much to be proud of.

You’re all talk and no action; thinking about it and being about it are different things.

You know who accepts defeat? Those who were never going to win anyways. That’s you, a loser.

I want to have a tidy, salient ah-ha to leave you with. But really, the thing I’ll leave you with is that I’m grappling with the In-Between. Both understanding it, and accepting it. For me that’s picking it up, rolling it around in my hands like a Rubik’s cube to be sorted; and speaking it aloud like a new language I’ve yet to master. It’s play, really, I guess is what I’m saying. I have to sit and fidget with it to develop my own point of view.

And I like to do it in public because I think that most of us go through this process, but think it has to be kept to ourselves as not to inconvenience anyone else, or put a crack in our credibility. We hear the breakdown and breakthrough trials, but only after our Hero(ine) has worked through it and polished the ragged truth into a smooth stone that’s pretty to look at.

I’m so over the pretty to look at; I actually am so grossly bored with how homogenous “pretty” has become - literally and metaphorically. I want the break, the crack, the gaps, the ugly. I want to see that you’re human, because if you are, then it means that I am. And, in that, we still have hope.

Me, leaving the mess in plain view. TBD liquid on my shirt, and unwashed hair/face for your enjoyment.

And I want to sit with the mess for as long as humanly possible, just like grief. It’s not easy or polite or tame or clean; but it’s real, and necessary, and the only way I feel actually at home in this body of mine.

See you next week.