You’re Not Lost — You’re Just In The Middle Of Something
I used to think there were two main states of being:
You were either together or falling apart.
That’s the narrative we’re sold, isn’t it? You’re thriving or you’re in crisis. You’re either fine or you’re flailing. You’re either lit up by life or you’re struggling to breathe through it.
But what about the space in between?
What about that strange middle place where you’re not exactly unhappy… but not quite yourself either? Where you can still laugh, still function, still tick off the to-do list — but quietly, you feel like you’ve slipped out of your own skin a bit?
That’s the place I found myself in during my own midlife.
Nothing catastrophic had happened. In many ways, things were “fine.” But I’d lost my footing. I couldn’t hear myself clearly. I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore — or even what I needed. I’d look at my calendar, my inbox, the stack of supplements I’d meant to take, and feel like I was watching a version of myself go through the motions, while another part of me stood on the edges whispering, Is this still you?
For a while, I didn’t talk about it. I thought maybe I was just being ungrateful. Maybe I needed to meditate more. Journal more. Try harder. Optimise better.
But then I started noticing something. The women around me — the ones I admired most — were saying the same thing, in different ways.
“I feel like the years are passing, and I’m not quite in them.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to want anymore.”
“I used to be passionate about things. Now I just feel… dulled.”
And so many of us thought we were alone in it. That we’d missed some essential life skill. That we were failing at midlife.
But what if we’re not?
What if this isn’t failure at all — just a kind of reorientation? A necessary pause. A space between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming.
A middle.
A tender, necessary, often overlooked middle.
In the natural world, there’s a term called the liminal space — a threshold, a transitional place where one thing hasn’t fully ended, and another hasn’t quite begun. It’s where the caterpillar has melted in the chrysalis, but isn’t yet a butterfly. It’s uncomfortable, undefined, and invisible from the outside. But it’s where real change begins.
I think midlife is its own kind of chrysalis.
Not a crisis. Not a decline. But a quiet restructuring. An unlearning. A becoming.
And like all middles, it takes time. It takes permission. It takes gentleness.
So if you’re here too — in this strange in-between place — know this:
You’re not lost.
You’re just in the middle of something.
And it’s okay if you don’t know what that something is yet.
Just keep paying attention.
Not to what you should be doing. Not to what everyone else is shouting about. But to what quietly feels like you. To what softens your breath. To what stirs a small flicker of feeling.
This isn’t about becoming a new person.
It’s about slowly remembering the one you already are — the one you’ve always been.
Even in the middle.
Especially in the middle.
