Interstitial (in the middle of).
My sweet wife Holly had an amazing grandma. Kind, sweet, incredible at baking (no kidding) and very wise. One of her favorite sayings, which has been quoted endlessly during our marriage is this: “there’s always room for ice cream, because it melts and fills in all the nooks and crannies”.
And while, it’s very true, it really got me thinking about how life is really what happens ‘in the middle of everything big’.
And how the middle is where the magic really is.
Because the middle is where we tend to spend most of our lives. Even if you’re living an incredible life of travel and events, chances are that most of your time is spent in doing the every day, the ‘mundane’, the usual.
For most of us, the usual is here and now, where we remember good things of the past, and dream of good things in the future.
But the valley between the peaks is where we tend to live.
That’s where the good things happen though, and where we can create some amazing memories if we focus on it. As a family, we have had some amazing things happen, yet most of our time is spent as a family just being ‘together’.
It’s a wonderful thing to get to the end of the day, and realize that once again we are all just hanging out. No predetermined event, no special planning or discussion, just the five of us (four plus dog) simply taking joy and happiness in the presence of each other.
Which is where the middle gets really special.
For Holly and me, being married 23 years might seem like a long time, and yet for us, it often feels like we are just beginning.
While we enjoy many things together, the greatest times of our relationship are the quite ones, like at the end of the day when we just lay together in bed and talk, or when we drive into the mountains together, talking less, and feeling more. We’ll hold hands as we drive, and without language express our love and appreciation for each other.
The middle can become magical if you let it.
As a parent, the middle has given me some of the greatest chances to encounter the spirit of the two amazing men who we have been blessed to raise. Chance discussions in the car on the way to the store have yielded greater depth than any pre-planned conversation.
Listening to them talk after an evening out with friends has provided teaching opportunities that no amount of scheduling could have accomplished.
If you can’t find a sense of peace in the middle (the valley) you’ll never truly learn to enjoy the peaks.
You’re going to spend far more of your time in the middle than you will outside of it, so you better get on with making it the best it can be.
Once you come to see the middle for what it truly is, and treat it as such, then you’ll come to understand why the quietest of lives can yield incredibly joy and happiness in the absence of great wealth or comforts.
The middle is always where the magic is, if you just look with the intent to find it.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings