The In-Between

My three-year-old great-niece recently asked my sister a perfectly reasonable question.

“When are you gonna get better, Grandma?”

If only someone had an answer.Beth has been in the hospital for more than a month now. Her adorable granddaughter hadn't been allowed to visit for much of that time, so seeing her was something Beth had really been looking forward to.

She arrived for Halloween dressed as a cat. It was such a joyous moment for all of us! And somewhere amid the cat ears and excitement came that question. Three-year-olds just say these things out loud.

Grownups get better at disguising them.

When is this going to get easier? When am I going to know what to do? When is all this work finally going to pay off? When am I going to meet the right person? When am I going to feel like myself again?

We really like knowing *when*.

I've certainly built enough plans around it. Goals need dates. Trips need departure times. Dreams usually work better when at some point we stop dreaming and start putting things on the calendar. I believe in that.

But today I'm reminded there's another part of me that doesn't seem terribly interested in our calendars.That stretch after something has changed but before you know what life is going to look like on the other side.

The in-between.

I've been in California for more than a month now. I'm doing less coaching. I'm away from home and missing people I love. Plans that felt important a few weeks ago are sitting somewhere off to the side.

And I don't know for how long.

That's the part I find interesting.

Because when we don't know *when*, there's a temptation to put ourselves on hold. We wait for clarity before making a decision. We wait to feel confident before trying something. We wait for the circumstances to settle before figuring out what we want. We wait for some imaginary future version of ourselves who will apparently know exactly what to do.

But what if we don't need the whole timeline?

Maybe sometimes we only need the next choice. What matters today? Who needs me today? What can I move forward today? What can wait? What can I let go of for now?

I still don't know the answer to my great-niece's question.

None of us does.

But watching her ask it reminded me how often I'm asking the same question in different clothes. When will I know?

Maybe that's not always the question we need answered.

Maybe the better question is: What do I know now?

If You’re Curious…

• Where are you waiting for a “when” before deciding what to do now?

• What do you know today, even if you don't know how the whole thing turns out?

• What's the next choice you can make without knowing the rest of the plan?