Interstice

My book club takes a detour in January; we decide to devote our first meeting of the year to creating vision books and boards to help us get clear on what we want to achieve, where we want to take our lives over the course of the next 365 days.  It’s an art project, so of course I’m in.  I spend a day in preparation, corralling my pens, papers, markers, stickers, glitter, scissors and glue; loading them into my beloved Fat Max, so I can wheel them down the street to our meeting place and share with my friends.  I also use this day to develop my vision for myself so I’m ready to go to work with the girls.  I think I want to center on finding balance, and as I consider how I might do this, the theme that emerges for me is the space between. 

The space between is ubiquitous.  The Dave Matthews Band sings about it. We all recognize it as fraught with anxiety and pain, the time we want to wish away.  It’s the fear in the pit of our stomachs when we’re suddenly kicked off our beaten paths and forced onto roads we’ve never traveled. It’s characterized by that unsettled feeling that consumes us when the next step is identified but we can’t take it immediately, or taking it could mean a bad outcome. Maybe it starts as stalling to avoid at all costs what we’re afraid of and ends with just wanting whatever it is to be over with so our fear will subside. Any way you look at it, the space between doesn’t feel good. 

For me, I realize the space between grabs a hold of every ounce of my energy and uses it for awfulizing, a term I recently heard on NPR that means imagining terrible outcomes.  The space between holds me hostage, strangles me in fear and robs me of time I could be using to embrace joy.  Whether worried about delivering a presentation to a client or having a hard conversation with an employee, I often don’t realize until after the deed is done that I have held my breath, trapped in the space between, unable to allow myself to smile, feel carefree or enjoy the good life has to offer.  This, I decide, needs to change. 

  

We think practice can help us overcome the discomfort.  This mindset may be where the mantra “Do one thing a day that scares you” comes from.  We believe we can train ourselves to let go of the anxiety if we just put ourselves in vulnerable situations regularly.  But in reality, as Brene Brown proves through the research in her book “Daring Greatly”, the discomfort never truly goes away.  We are far better served accepting this vulnerability as normal and getting ourselves used to dealing with the uncomfortable.

 

So I try this.  I tell myself the space between isn’t supposed to feel good.  And it is amazingly liberating. I’m not sure exactly why, but maybe it’s because this new perspective releases me to give myself permission to be afraid and uncertain. When I accept my vulnerability and express rather than suppress it, room is created to let some joy in.

I make it my goal this year to pay attention to how I’m using the time I spend in the space between.  In this space I tend to be unavailable to the people who matter to me; I don’t make time to take care of myself.  I lose faith and can’t trust the mess that is life.  My vision book reminds me to recover the space in between and repurpose the energy I expend there for activities that nourish me:  to eat regularly, vacation liberally, create earnestly and practice gratitude.  I’m the girl holding an umbrella on the tight rope, not only to find better balance, but to learn to let go and celebrate life.