Notes from the In-Between

On Monday, for a stretch of an hour or two, I felt wonderful. My heart rate was bizarrely normal, my head clear, my body energetic. No dizziness, no headache, no anything, except a feeling of perfect vitality—vitality and gratitude. I found myself dancing happily in the kitchen. In that moment of openness, something else poured in, too, swaying alongside my gratitude and joy. It was a grief of sorts, but a grief of the hurts-so-good variety. I rocked side to side, wrapping my arms around myself, alternating between grinning and crying.

Why cry when I felt so good? When we are in the thick of a difficult or traumatic experience, we don’t always have the bandwidth to acknowledge to ourselves the full weight of our suffering. And so, when I find myself in these joyful moments—moments in which it seems that I’ve almost crossed the bridge and reached the other side—bits and pieces of that past due acknowledgment bubble up. I don’t cry because I’m sad right now. I cry because for much of the past fifteen months, I’ve been so tangled up in the struggle to survive and the struggle to function that I never quite got around to draining all of the tears.

Crying now feels like an offering to myself. It’s self-compassion, extended backward across time and inward to the part of me that still feels bruised. This offering spans forward, too, reaching out to my future self, extending compassion for whatever relapses or darkness she might experience.

We are always suspended between the shores of past and future. Our whole life plays out on this bridge—on the eternal in-between of the present moment. I cannot change what’s happened in the past. I cannot know what will happen in the future. I can choose how to inhabit the space between them—how to bridge the shores. I can choose to connect with my past and future through self-compassion. And I can choose to hold compassionate space for myself right here and now.

I think the real power of compassion—whether for ourselves or others—is this: it is rooted in acceptance of what is. It begins with planting our feet solidly on the bridge of the present moment and letting the reality of where we are inspire the choice of where to go next.

Choosing self-compassion isn’t a one-and-done choice. It’s a practice to return to over and over. We fall down, scraping up against self-judgment, impatience with ourselves, or that interminable list of ‘shoulds’ that never helps anyone. That right there can be our starting place for self-compassion. Can you have compassion for the fact that you’re sometimes hard on yourself? Can you have compassion for the fact that you aren’t always present—that you don’t always accept what is?

P.S. Since launching Corona Cafe on July 24, 2020, I’ve somehow (I’m really not sure how) managed to send out an email every single week. I’m going to take this next week off and spend time visiting family. You’ll hear from me again on Friday, June 25. If you need a boost before then, spend some time perusing the archives!