In-Between

I did not expect a year ago that I would be in-between homes, and that I would be one inch away from having no kids left at home, that the roadmap of my so carefully crafted career path would fall apart so quickly....  I wasn't ready for the abrupt punch in the face that stuns one's senses....leaving one dazed, confused a bit and without momentum...

Have you experienced "in-between" before?

 Although I have been in-between a thousand times before, this 'in-between" has been different.  This isn't about being in-between jobs, homes, schools, or even countries in my case..... This is that new kind of different.... the empty place of in-between when the kids leave.  I can remember just yesterday how the house was bustling with kids and activities. Every minute was eaten up with things to do, kids to take care of, errands to run...... the idea of finding time for myself was fleeting... maybe I would get a few minutes, maybe an hour on some days.  Many times the only way to find that time was by staying up too late at night.  Back then, it was that place where I found myself many times in the driveway of my home, after work, lingering for a few extra minutes to lean my head on the steering wheel, mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of what awaited just a few feet away....inside.  Not bad, just busy....good busy.  It would require an "all in" attitude, anything in-between wouldn't be enough.

That was yesterday.... today I walk in and I can hear a pin drop.  Eerie...No noise... no bustle.... just a new kind of unnerving quiet.  I never would have thought free time would ever be a burden but it has been for the first time.  How weird.....The minutes can seem like hours, the hours days.  The irony is now I am not sure what to do with it.  Yes, I now can do all those things I never could before.  So I do them... and there is tons of time left.  This was that time people would talk about writing the next great American novel, to redecorate, learn a new instrument, or donate all your time to the needy.
Funny how that is not where my head or heart is...I can't seem to find the momentum to realize all those things I dreamed about.

Sometimes I feel the silence screams so loud here in this forsaken in-between place... silence that creates its' own tension inside.  I should be ecstatic!  How come it isn't enough?   Why am I restless? What kind of crazy is this?

I am not comfortable in or with this place... I want the clarity of one side or the other, not wanting to pretend I am ok in the "middle", only to confront the reality of my restlessness, like an animal pacing back and forth as if stuck in a pen trying to break through and run free.

In these "in-betweens" I found those two dobermans going at each other in my mind.  Each barking the virtues of their points of view, trying to coax me into their respective corner....being caught in the middle..... clearly seeing both sides, but knowing I need to ultimately side with one....Like letting go of a very dreamy dream despite its' slippery grasp on reality, knowing the inevitability of having to focus forward on something more tangible, more solid, more real.  Not easy for a dreamer like me.... but.....necessary.

I close my eyes, and reach out wide with both arms trying to feel the security and hardness of walls, walls I can lean on, walls I can feel and trace my fingers across the random grooves on its surface, following the texture until they arrive at the certainty of borders and boundaries.....

solidity of purpose.

Total Eclipse

Today the moon did what it always does every day, rotate around the earth in it's habitual unsurprising orbit.  A dead rock tethered to a cosmic gravitational leash.    It had no idea that today would be different..... very different.  The sun didn't have anything special planned either.   It was going to do what it did everyday, blast us with light, heat and a bunch of UV rays.

Today their paths would cross seemingly randomly, just by chance the moon would pass for just a few minutes directly in front of the sun.  The affect would be dramatic and capture the imagination of millions, and yet each wouldn't know about the other, neither would care.

It was so cool to see the light of the practically noon day sun soften so suddenly yet slowly all at the same time, such sublety.  It was as if a camera filter had been placed over all the earth, or over all our eyes.   Then the air slowly got cooler, the temperature dropped as if someone literally clicked down on the thermostat 10 degrees.  It was like being in a real life sci fi movie for a few minutes.  So odd, so cool and so captivating.  We were there, for just those few minutes, and then the light normalized, the heat came back and we went on our way......the moment had passed, and we were all that we were before.  But we were all part of something special for that moment.

Most of our lives is about people crossing our paths, and us theirs....  Most of the time they are like partial eclipses, then once in a while, we experience a total eclipse.  These are different.  These cast a different light on things.  The temperature changes in that we feel different, we see things in a different light......as if seeing things for the first time.  They can be cosmic, they definitely capture our imagination.  We find ourselves dreaming for a few minutes like we all did today watching that eclipse in the sky......wondering what could be.....lost in our view heavenward.

Maybe you have had a few total eclipse moments in your life.... I have.  They tend to mark us with more permanent ink than the normal day to day crossings.  They always seem so random, but when looking back, they aren't are they?   Something orchestrated the timing, the sequence, the time, so perfectly.  Can it really be so random when it comes to you and me.... Really?  It was just coincidental that you and I met the way we did?  Accidental?  I don't think so..... We felt the connection, we were drawn to each other.....cosmic no?  I would like to think it wasn't something, but rather someone who knew cosmic math so well that the algorithm of our particular total eclipse was perfectly designed for you and I to know each other.... so we could love each other better.  Here is to all the total eclipses that have brought all of you to my life.  I am the better for it.

If this is what calculus was all about, then I get it now.....I guess I am ok with learning math in Heaven after all....