The in-between spaces

 I realized recently that I am living in the in-between space and that it is a familiar place for me. These spaces in our lives that are in-between jobs, in-between relationships, in-between apartments. I just got married and I have found myself in my husband's recently late grandmother's house as it's preparing to change hands to a new lineage of humans. Generations of memories echoing through the halls.

In-between spaces carry a lot of joy, a lot of sorrow and a lot of uncertainty. What is to come? How do I define myself? In order to make sense of it all, I draw myself closer to the Higher Power of my understanding. At least, I am in good hands.

It's hard not to remember my last round of goodbyes as I say my most recent. Faces of those who became so familiar, destined to become strangers, trusted confidants, radiant faces who appear whilst travelling through their own in-betweens. Hard to know who's who sometimes. Not really something I have control over, I've slowly come to learn.

In these in-betweens I've noticed a slowing down, more time to feel appreciation for what I have accomplished rather than criticism for what I haven't, an energy of creativity to spend. How will I spend it today? Dipping my toes in the sand and the frothing shoreline or slowly boxing the lifetime of possessions belonging to this woman who recently became my ancestor? What form does a spirit take in the memory of her granddaughter-in-law, I muse.

I feel my memories of my own grandmothers colliding as I gather bits of stories of this new one over weekly dinners. As I lounge in bed, I watch a younger version of Myrna watching me. I asked my husband to take it down, most of the other framed pictures already stacked in the living room in preparation for departure, but I feel a shadow of her authority as he unhooks it and walks away.

I wonder if/how/when I'll want to be remembered when I'm gone. As if we have control over it anyways, the best moments are unplanned in my experience. How am I already remembered? My face frozen in time for other's to call on and learn from, representing a variety of things, not all of which I'd like to know about. I've heard some version of the line, 'we mustn't be defined by our worst moment', reverberating through social media recently. I'm still not sure how to fully make sense of it.

These are the ponderings in the spaces in-between. Knowing that one day soon, life will return to a new normal and there will be little time to contemplate the universe and our place in it. Until the next upheaval of existence and we are foisted into the time in-between once again for a short period.