The Space Between

(i'm sorry for that earworm)

Another week has passed by without my express written consent, and here we are again.

I’ve fallen off of about every routine I have because life right now is genuinely jam-packed. I started my new job, am working on photography projects, and--there’s no way to say it other than just saying it-- I fell in love with a house. I don’t want to say too much yet, but I will say if you have prayers, good vibes, or thoughts to send my way-- I could use them.

So this week I decided to write what I know again.

And it just so happens to fall in line with one of Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journal Prompts. Last year I spent the first 100 days of quarantine journaling along with her, and to celebrate the one anniversary of the project, she’s resending some of the best prompts. I won’t spoil it, but the most recent one from the resharing this week is about in-betweens. 

I find myself in an in-between right now in many different ways. I’ve started a new job and am navigating this middle world of learning something new and doing. I am also fully vaccinated. For the past few weeks, I’ve been navigating this newfound freedom that not being solely an entrepreneur has given me. For much of my freelance career, I have craved security. Now that I’m beginning to find that, I feel ease.

This relief has corresponded with my vaccination, and for the first time in the past few years, I find myself wanting to make plans to see friends, even craving it. This, I know, may come as a shock because on the outside I appear to be a very social person. 

On the inside, I’ve been dealing with this nameless sense of dread every time I needed to leave my house. I am sad to report that this began about a year before the pandemic, and then the pandemic exasperated it. Seeing friends, even friends who are the dearest to me has felt emotionally tricky. Making plans of any kind usually left me saying, “I don’t want to do this,” and almost crying before heading out the door to do it anyway. This was an in-between of its own: the wanting to want to go, but not wanting to leave and doing it anyway. I now understand that this is a byproduct of depression. I’ve known about this depression. I’ve been in therapy to talk about it for years, but I never associated the dread. 

Now, my mental priorities have shifted unexpectedly, and I want to see friends and talk over tables of food for hours. Nothing sounds better than that.

This, of course, puts me in a new in-between. I want the world to be open again so I can hang out with my friends, as everyone has wanted for quite some time, another party I’m late to. 

And slowly, as more people get the vaccine, the world is opening back up. It is still a between world-- (hopefully) full of safety precautions and of monitoring the numbers. But it is a world where two friends can soon sit across from each other at a coffee shop, or linger over full tabless or sit close on a couch and watch a movie, and for this, I am very excited. 

I used to clear days at a time to have no plans. I told myself that it would make me feel better, but without fail I’d be sad within the first few hours.

Somehow over the last few weeks, my usual weekend ritual of bagel Saturday evolved. Steph and I decided to go thrifting for a few hours and make it a regular thing. So as soon as we finished our bagel sandwiches, we’d throw on clothes, mask up, and go to a few spots. 

Then my friend Ben and I started watching Drag Race together virtually.

I am now committed to three Saturday plans each week, and I look forward to it from Monday forward.

This is almost unbelievable to me and to my closest friends who almost certainly caught on through it all. But it feels good. It feels like progress towards something better.

And again, I am only here.

I feel like in nearly everything in my life right now, I am in the middle.

Today, and every day I’m trying to embrace what needs to be done and find some joy where I can, even if I’m in the in-between.

Reading: legal documents.

Watching: Drag Race, Drag Race, and more Drag Race.

Buying: my mom some Vans Slip Ons for her birthday. If you’re reading this, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Writing: emails.

Promising: better recs next week <3

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