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in the middle

Hi guys. It’s been a minute.

As you may know, I took a break from my own writing to blog for Scare Your Soul for a few months, which was an altogether very rewarding experience. If you weren’t following along, I suggest you check it out: http://bit.ly/AlisonScaresHerSoul

When that project finished — life happened! The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 has been very full for me — I’m filled with the utmost gratitude reflecting on a promotion at work, lots of awesome auditions, time spent with family and friends, and an exciting first stab at some television work. This is my first complete day off in quite some time and while I’ll never complain about being busy, I’m happy to sit down and write for the first time in a while.

I’ve been blessed with the unique reality that as a new calendar year begins, I’m personally celebrating a new trip around the sun. I didn’t always like having a New Year’s Day birthday, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to love it. It really gives me a profound opportunity to take stock of what I learned in the past year, and determine what’s important to me in the one to come.

Something I’ve been reflecting on at the beginning of 2019 and my personal year twenty-nine is the overwhelming feeling of being in the middle. It’s something I feel I was never properly prepared for. I was fully equipped to be a child and to complete my years of schooling. And I think we all have a pretty good sense of what it will look and feel like to be on the other side of “success” — to have a secure job we love, a solid space we call home, and whatever version of family makes sense for us. But I don’t think we’re generally painted a picture of what it looks and feels like to exist indefinitely in the in between. To be poised and perched right at the precipice, ready for the signal to jump — but not quite knowing when or what that signal will be.

The middle can be a really itchy place to be. A sort of nondescript taste of everything. I’m reminded of a professor in college who advised us young actors to be wary of “the middle” in terms of type — “skinny minis” and “big mamas” are marketable, she said. Being in the middle doesn’t sell. A bit of an eye-roll and frankly pretty offensive in terms of weight and branding, but I can make sense of the notion. You want to live confidently in one place or another — not drift about aimlessly between the two.

I find myself in a lot of conversations these days where people are floating about in the middle. Whether they’re anxiously awaiting their next job, wondering if it’s time to commit to living without roommates, or generally feeling like they should have more “figured out” by now; this question of “What’s next?” feels very relevant and all too familiar.

Perhaps the most striking place I see it show up is on the dating scene. The last few guys I’ve dated have either panicked at the thought of progressing past casual, or start hearing wedding bells after knowing each other for under a month. Why can’t we comfortably exist in the middle? Whatever happened to going to dinner and snuggling on the couch and generally caring about each other’s day-to-day existence? Is that a phase we skip over now? So many girlfriends of mine have fallen victim to guys who voluntarily go all in and then quickly abort mission. Because existing in the middle seems to be so painstakingly impossible that they’d rather get out entirely. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic, but many men seem to live by these rules.

While the in between can certainly feel lost, or aimless, or altogether terrifying; it’s also the bulk of our journey. It’s our playing field to try things out and mess things up and collect data for what works and what doesn’t. By desperately needing to be in one place or the other, we’re depriving ourselves of the opportunity to grow. To change. To be surprised. To experience the full spectrum of what life has to offer.

I took a course on mindfulness recently, and it was a lot about presencing. Living mindfully will almost guarantee living more happily. And being fully present in the moment to moment is what unlocks mindfulness. That means that owning and embracing the very real discomfort of navigating a “middle” phase will actually bring you significantly more happiness than dwelling on better days, or dreaming of something greater yet to come. Lately, I’ve been working on acknowledging and even enjoying the mundane, middle moments. My commutes. Running errands. Routined, patterned behaviors. These make up my reality — why should I sleepwalk through them, or worse, despise them in any way? By learning to love these micro moments of in between, I’m training myself to embrace the greater in between.

As my twenty-ninth birthday rolled around, I kept saying to people that I was kind of ready to just be thirty and do the damn thing already. Twenty-nine in and of itself is such an “in the middle” age. You can barely say you’re “in your twenties” any more. But you haven’t quite made it to the big 3-0. So I’ve been trying to welcome the utter in between-ness. To count this year as both a sending off and a sending forth. And to recognize that in order to happily reach something more final, I must first learn to love the middle.

Alison McCartan stays in her New York City apartment for 24 hours and finally writes a new blog post :)

stayed in PJs all day and didn't leave my apartment for 24 hours -- so happy writing can be part of my R&R in my "in between" existence

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