Friday, 14 August 2026
Endings get sympathy. Beginnings get congratulations. The stretch in between gets almost nothing — no card, no ritual, no agreed-on word for it — which is strange, because it is longer than either of the other two and it is where most of the actual living happens.
People ask how you are for about six weeks. After that the question quietly changes into what you are going to do next, which is a different question wearing the same clothes. You learn to answer it with a plan you do not have, because the honest answer — that you do not know, that you are not even sure what the question is yet — makes the other person uncomfortable in a way you end up managing on their behalf.
So you go quiet about it. And then you are in the strangest part of your life with nobody to describe it to.
I do not think this stretch needs fixing. I think it needs company. There is a difference between someone trying to move you along and someone willing to stand in it with you for as long as it takes, and almost everyone I walk with has been offered a great deal of the first and almost none of the second.