The In Between Time

I often write or am most compelled to write when I am experiencing extreme highs or, most often, extreme lows. This is not one of those times. Rather, this is the time in between, where life has given you a bit of a lull before it again gears up for an extreme high or a disappointing low. I’ve come to appreciate these times meandering on the plateau, a time where you have the best vantage point of those mountains you anticipate climbing as well as the valleys where you hope not to dwell for too long.

A lot has happened over the past several months. A little over a month ago the hubby and I moved into our “forever” house. Let me explain this. I’m a nester. I like to find something and somewhere comfortable and then stay there. The past few years have been disruptive physically and emotionally. These last four years will have found us spending Christmas in 4 different “homes”. This year, we’re in what we anticipate being our final home. The house is everything either my husband or I wanted and needed. And minus a somewhat questionable neighbor (every neighborhood has at least one, we just happen to be living beside them), our ranch home is where we hope to live the rest of our days.

Yesterday I put up Christmas decorations throughout parts of our home. It felt different, even more than it did when I’d purchased my first home at the age of 24. Now, over a decade later, it felt comfortably final. I got up and did chores (is it no longer chores as an adult?) for a couple of hours and ended it with starting to work on the inside Christmas decor. There is a warmth in our home that is difficult to explain but a part of what makes it a home rather than a house. I thought of my grandmother and how much I have missed her since her passing. And with the radio playing in the background, I then allowed myself to think of other loved ones who are no longer here. I called their names in my head while envisioning moments that I spent with them. My grandfather. My grand aunt/godmother. Others. They remain important to me and I make sure that I don’t forget them. I concentrate most on remembering the sound of their voices. I feel like they are more real when I can recall what their voices sounded like and how that makes me feel when I think of them.

I’ll be 36 in less than a month. Almost 40. Where has the time gone?! I have already completed one career and am now on my second and although 36 years are in some ways a mere blip, one can’t help but reflect with some melancholy and awe. Mostly, I think about, despite my dark passenger of depression always being with me, how truly blessed I am. I have a family that I genuinely enjoy spending time with. With whom we always get together on all the holidays, parents that I see and/or speak to weekly, a life that I sometimes take for granted but am always reminded of how remarkable it is.

In these, the in between times I take a moment to allow my life-in-review to wash over me. Taking it all in, the good, the bad, the ugly. Sucking the marrow out of the moments I may have missed when I lived it the first time. I have realized in recent days that I have changed quite a bit over the past decade. And although I am still the same girl, I’m a different woman. Every day may not be a good day, but it still is mine to become more and more comfortable with the person I was, am and hope to be.