23d • Motivation & Music
THE IN BETWEEN IS A REAL PLACE
I think we talk a lot about letting go.
We talk about closing doors.
Walking away.
Changing.
Healing.
Choosing yourself.
Starting again.
But we don't talk enough about what happens immediately after.
Because sometimes you finally let go of the thing you knew wasn't right for you…
and nothing replaces it.
Not yet.
And there you are.
Hands empty.
I know this place well.
In recovery, I had to let go of things that were destroying me long before I had anything good to replace them with.
And I don't just mean alcohol.
I mean behaviours.
Ways of thinking.
Ways of surviving.
People.
Roles I had played for so long that I didn't know who I was without them.
Even pain can become familiar.
That's a difficult thing to admit.
You can live with hurt for so long that the absence of it feels strange.
You can carry anger for years and then, when you finally put it down, you don't immediately feel peaceful.
Sometimes you just feel empty.
Nobody really tells you that.
They tell you to let go.
They don't tell you that your hands might stay empty for a while.
And I think that's where a lot of us panic.
We mistake the in between for a mistake.
We think…
Maybe I shouldn't have left.
Maybe I shouldn't have stopped.
Maybe I should go back.
Maybe the old life wasn't that bad.
Maybe I expected too much.
Maybe there's something wrong with me because this doesn't feel better yet.
But familiar doesn't mean right.
And empty doesn't always mean you've lost.
Sometimes empty is simply what space feels like before something new has had time to grow there.
I'm learning this again in different ways.
Because the in between isn't exclusive to recovery.
It's between relationships.
Between careers.
Between versions of yourself.
Between the person who survived and the person who is learning how to actually live.
It's that strange place where you know too much to go backwards…
but you can't quite see forwards yet.
And yes.
It can be lonely.
It can be frightening.
It can make you question decisions you were once completely certain about.
I've done that.
I've stood in the space I fought bloody hard to reach and wondered why it felt so quiet when I got there.
But perhaps quiet isn't punishment.
Perhaps the gap has a purpose.
Perhaps we aren't supposed to immediately fill every space we create.
Maybe some spaces need to remain empty long enough for us to stop putting the same things back into them.
That's the part I'm sitting with.
The in between is not the destination.
But it is a real place.
And sometimes the bravest thing you can do there is not run backwards simply because you recognise the road.
You stay.
Hands empty.
A little frightened.
A little hopeful.
And you trust that you haven't come this far just to be left here.
You are still moving.
Even here.
Even now.
Even in between.
— The Quiet Turning
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THE IN BETWEEN IS A REAL PLACE
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