In between the Blink of an Eye and a Month of Sundays

The older I get, the more I see that life is really about living "in between." Our lives will be marked by a beginning and an end but the living happens in between. I start work at 8 am and leave at 4 pm - if I get a lot of work done in the time between. The problem is that I sometimes I forget this incredibly simple thought.

At the moment, I am surrounded by the passages of time both beginnings and endings. My good friend, Wendy, just lost her father. My other good friend has been placed on bed rest so that the little boy growing inside her will wait until he is a little bigger to make his grand entrance. Beginnings and endings, and in betweens, my own father has been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson's disease. A diagnosis that places us in between being able to give a name to the symptoms but not knowing what lies ahead or how soon the the ending will come.

Life happens in the middle, like an Oreo cookie, the good stuff happens in the middle. Even things that turn out bad or cause a lot pain often had good "middles." I am reminded of my own failed marriage, while not a perfect union, had plenty of good things in the middle. And as Hannah graduates from high school, while I will remember the first day of kindergarten and the walk across the stage to receive her diploma, she is a wonderful young woman today because of all of the middle stuff.

The in betweens can seem to rush by us in a blink of an eye. It seems like only yesterday that I talked to Rachel about the hope of babies, now she awaits the birth of her third. Where did the time go? Only yesterday, Hannah dreamed of being a gypsy and spoke her own created form of Spanish. Now she aspires to be a neurologist and well, speaks some sort of teenage language that I seem to old to understand. In the blink of the eye, the in between has passed. The in between is our cherished friend.

Or the in betweens can seem to move slowly, the progression from beginning to end feels like a month of Sundays. I think about the things I want to change but don't change. The healing from a failed marriage seems to take a month of Sundays or the waiting for the meds to work and the seizures to stop can feel like forever. The in between is now the enemy.

In between the blink of an eye and a month of sundays is where our lives happen. It is where I find my most proud moments and my most embarrassing moments. The in between is where I learn and grow and love. And while I find myself looking ahead with worries or looking behind with regrets, the truth is the in between is where the real living takes place.