The in between
Flourish Vol. 56
It’s the shoulder season, those languid last few weeks of August into September, not quite summer according to the calendar and back-to-school sales, but still far too humid to be fall. The sticky-hot last gasps of an unbearably shapeless summer have made New York City feel like the tropical terrarium exhibit at the zoo, and I, for one, am fed up with figuring out how to dress for it. I’m yearning desperately for boots and scarves, for changing leaves and pumpkin-scented candles, for autumn in New England and the first snow in Central Park. For structure, for change, for the cold air on my cheeks to rouse me back to life.
It’s been a weird, hard, listless sort of summer. Too many amorphous plans evaporated into the sun, too much will-they-or-won’t-they, too much waiting around for things to fall together, only to have them fall apart. Too many choices I would have made differently, or made at all, in hindsight. This summer felt post-pandemic in name only, at least for me personally. I still have yet to regain the joy and excitement, the joie de vivre, I had before all of the sadness and turmoil of the past few years, but I hope it returns. And I know now that that, too, is a choice.
I’m riding out a shoulder season, a holding pattern, too—ready to discard 28 and all this year has brought like an ill-fitting and regrettable outfit—but still a couple weeks away from 29 (which I will, blessedly, be spending in London. A long-overdue vacation and return after seven (!) years away.) I am trying to make the best of these remaining weeks, to learn from all that’s transpired, and to set myself up for what will hopefully be a new chapter, too.
For the past few years, without fail, I have begun to dread, or at least anxiously anticipate, my birthday several months beforehand—a completely pointless exercise. I remember thinking 25 sounded like the most grown-up age in the world, remember hoping feverishly that it would be the year everything would fall into place, believing somehow I was already behind the ball in life. But I was so young, and I still had so much time. And I know someday I’ll look back and feel that way about 29, or 35 or 41, too.
As I find myself at a sort of crossroads now, somewhere in between where I’ve been and where I want to be, I’ve been turning to my elders for wisdom—parents, grandparents, older colleagues, family friends. And in each conversation I have heard, more or less, the sentiment that life is long, and there is still so much time left, and that even with the luxury of time, the truth is you will still never really have it all figured out.
There will be good years and bad ones, there will continue to be challenges and acts of God and happy surprises and unexpected tragedies, windfalls and recessions and babies born and people dying. There will be fruitful times and awful times, there will be a lot of money and then sometimes there will be none, there will be so many things that we think will make us happy—and perhaps they will, for a bit—but not forever.
Life is not a fixed point on the horizon; it is the entire horizon, and the sun, and the absence of it, too. It is happening all around us, all the time, and we can choose to be paralyzed by the future and mournful for the past, or we can choose to be here. We can choose to accept that happiness is not a permanent state of being, because there will always be another brass ring to reach, greener grass in someone else’s yard, and so much of what we think will make us contented is embarrassingly fleeting.
I have spent months stressing about growing older, sleepless nights agonizing about what my future holds. And ultimately none of that worrying has done me any good, or safeguarded me from uncertainty and the future that is waiting. In fact, dwelling upon my anxiety and things I no longer want or need in my life will only guarantee that I attract more of those things.
The original topic of this newsletter was going to be about suffering, and fairness, in relation to the topic of student loan forgiveness as well as some challenges I’ve encountered in my career as of late. I will never understand the mindset that because one person suffered, everyone else should too. That forgiving at least some of the burden of student debt is somehow “unfair” to those who already paid theirs, or never had any at all. We all reap the benefits of a better educated, more upwardly mobile society, and particularly coming from journalism, my mindset has always been that I want better for the interns, fellows, and new graduates I encounter than what was available to me.
This year has reinforced, point blank, that fairness is not in the rulebook of life. That I can work as hard as I want, protest as hard as I’d like, reason with people’s better angels until the cows come home, but some things just are what they are. Sometimes it is what it is. Sometimes you are just dealt the cards you’re dealt, you make the choices you make, and that’s just life. Living happens in what you choose to do next.
And so I am choosing to believe that the best is yet to come. That the challenges of the past year are preparing me for the rest of my life, even if I don’t quite know what that is yet. I am choosing to believe in abundance, that what is meant for me is making its way toward me, that no amount of stress and anxiety will change the future—it’ll only interrupt the present.
I have no idea what the future holds, but what I know is that I can choose to live in anxiety and fear, or I can choose to “seek the mystery” (Deepak Chopra’s words, not mine.) To lean into uncertainty, into life as it is happening at this very second, knowing that it will never happen quite this way again. To accept that we don’t know how we got here or where we’re going next, but right here, right now, we can choose how we experience this life, in all of its guts and glory.
In a way, the present is an in between; the threshold bridging what was and what will be, all the yous you’ve ever been and the all the ones you might become, everything that has happened and everything that is possible. And yet it’s so much more than that. After all, we are an infinitesimal blip on the timeline, and we are everything that has ever existed, too. The past is gone, and the future is a place we haven’t been yet, and worrying about either is a fool’s errand that ensures we’re never really here, either. Now is all we have. What more could we possibly ask for?
And now for a few words from a fellow moony, melancholy Virgo whose writing and voice make me certain that I am not alone in my experience that is the chaos and magic of existing right now.
I was steady, I was soft to the touch / Cut wide open, did I let in too much?
Recommendations:
The Professional Try-Hard Is Dead, But You Still Need to Return to the Office (I had the pleasure of chatting with Delia, a former BuzzFeed-er, last week and it’s really cool to see her thriving and writing such timely and insightful pieces at Vanity Fair!)
This bracingly honest and relatable piece by Carla Ciccone about being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult woman, after many years of being written off as lazy or an airhead, or having it masked by anxiety and depression. I was diagnosed with ADHD myself earlier this year, and while my treatment options are something I’m still working through, I can say that it makes a lot of sense, and that when medicated I didn’t feel “under the influence” or amped up on anything—I just felt normal.
And, of course, I have to give a shout-out to my favorite divorced dad rockers, who continue to turn out music that sounds exactly like The National has always sounded, and yet feels fresh and timely. I’ve been spinning this on repeat (with a few more upbeat songs mixed in, don’t worry!)
Happy almost fall, y’all. I’ll be the first to say that reality feels more than a little surreal most days, but at the very least we have music and poetry and puppies and candles and the changing of the leaves. I’ll be right here, clinging to those things.
-Liv
