avoiding the middle

aka the newfound purpose of this publication

I think I’ve officially found the heart of this page (well, until I find another one).

I’m calling it: avoiding the middle.

“The middle” refers to the parts of our lives dulled by lack of excitement, originality and most commonly, change. The time spent waiting for the next thing to happen or wishing you could be back somewhere else.

As an analogy: Off the heels of a trip to Italy, I realized that everything seems so much better at the beginning and the end.

The beginning of travel is always novel and enlivening—even if it’s just because it can be challenging. After the first few days, blisters set in and so does the exhaustion and you find yourself longing for your bed at home which you normally find so incredibly boring. But on that last day, you don’t want to board that plane and you look at the photos you took with the bittersweet knowledge that you’ll never experience those things again. Then, when you do get home and crawl into your bed, it’s almost magical.

Spreading out in your own space, smelling your laundry detergent, feeling the familiar rub of the sheets against your bare feet. It’s heavenly. But give it a week and you’re ready to be anywhere else. The time in which you can’t go anywhere else, that’s the middle.

Sophomore and junior year of college? The middle.

The months of January–March? The middle.

Month nine of your full-time job? The middle.

So, I’ve decided that since the majority of my life is spent in the middle, I’m going to figure out ways to navigate it and make it less insufferable.

Not everything in life can be new or melancholy, but how sad would it be if we spent our whole lives waiting?