The In Between

What is the In Between?

It’s the moment between waking and sleeping when the dream still lingers like a dense fog before it evaporates with the light of day. It’s the pause in a conversation between potential lovers across the table on a first date. It’s the period of time spent at airport terminals. It’s the yellow traffic light alerting drivers to slow down between red and green, stop and go. It’s the end of something, and the beginning of something else.

We can be in between jobs, relationships, houses, or any configuration that indicates a transition. Most of us don’t like being in the In Between. We prefer to know where we stand. We crave security. We don’t like waiting. But how many of us see a yellow traffic light as a choice, rather than a rule? There is a moment in between green and red when some drivers ask, will I take a risk, or be cautious and wait my turn?

When we learn to be patient and still, great reflection can occur in the In Between. Winter is a season that teaches us how to be in between, to remember the dream, to notice the eyelashes of the potential lover across the table rather than thinking of what to say next to impress them, to slow down and take in one’s surroundings, to see and sense all that there is in and around us. There is wonder and magic in the In Between.

The In Between is the here and now, not the place we are going, or the place we have been. If we can make the In Between our new comfort zone, we won’t feel the need to push past it to get on to the next phase. The In Between is where we discover who we really are, if we dare to look at our own reflection.