Living in the middle.
On not waiting for resolution before you let yourself be here.
At some point during a difficult stretch a few years back, I stopped making plans.
I didn’t cancel everything or announce I was withdrawing. I just quietly stopped initiating, stopped booking things, kept saying ‘maybe’ to invitations until maybe became ‘no’. I told myself I was managing priorities, being realistic, not getting ahead of myself.
I didn’t notice I’d done it until a friend asked if I was okay, and I realised I’d been isolating for months.
That particular habit, putting yourself on hold until something else is sorted out, is so common and so quiet that most of us don’t recognise it while we’re doing it.
At the time, it feels like sensible triage. But underneath it’s usually something else: a belief that life, properly enjoyed and fully inhabited, is something that happens after.
After the thing is dealt with.
After the relationship repairs.
After the situation settles.
After.
The problem is that ‘after’ rarely arrives the way we imagine it. And while we’re waiting, we’re not the only ones who notice we’ve stepped away.
Postponement as a way of staying in it.
Postponement, in its quieter form, is a way of staying connected with the difficult thing. By treating it as so significant that life itself must wait, we give the situation a kind of power. There’s something in the postponement that says: I am not moving on.
Carrying on, by contrast, can feel like a betrayal. Like you’re saying the thing doesn’t matter, like you’re getting ahead of yourself.
But carrying on is not the same as giving up. It’s not pretending things are fine. It’s choosing to remain alive in your own life while the difficult thing is still there.
That’s not avoidance. That’s steadiness.
The people close to us feel it too.
When we’re in holding mode, not quite present but not quite absent either, the people around us pick up on it. Not always consciously. They feel it in the quality of our attention, in the flatness behind the functioning, in the sense that we’re somewhere else even when we’re in the room.
And often, without being told anything, they feel subtly responsible. They infer that things must be serious. They start treading carefully. They carry a small weight they didn’t ask for and don’t know how to put down.
So when we carry on, when we make a plan and keep it, or laugh at something that’s actually funny, or show up with our attention actually here, we’re not just doing something for ourselves. We’re releasing the people around us from something they’ve been quietly holding.
Carrying on is not the same as giving up.
It’s choosing to remain alive in your own life while the difficult thing is still there.
What it actually looks like.
It’s not performing happiness. It doesn’t require pretending. It’s smaller and quieter than that.
It looks like making a plan for next weekend. Going to see something you’ve been meaning to see. Laughing at something that’s actually funny. Cooking a proper meal. Having a conversation that has nothing to do with the difficult thing.
In December 2022, a relationship had ended a little while earlier and I was not in good shape. A friend had invited me to their annual pre-Christmas dinner, a big warm gathering of people who mostly knew each other well. I spent the entire day trying to talk myself out of going.
The story I was telling myself was specific: that I was a pity invite, that I’d be the sad person everyone had to be careful around, that showing up in that state, to something that festive, would make me a burden and the evening worse.
The generous interpretation of this is that I was being considerate. The honest one is that I was considering using it as a reason to stay home, with my sadness for company.
At some point in the late afternoon, I gave myself a pep talk, made a dessert, put on a good shirt, packed some non-alcoholic beers, and went. I nearly turned around several times on the drive. But I kept going, got there, and… had a nice kind of fun.
I met people I hadn’t met before.
I laughed at things that were actually funny, said some things that made others laugh.
I ate well and felt, for a few hours, like a person who was still part of things. Nobody was careful around me, and nobody needed to be.
That friendship has since faded, the way some do. But something from that evening stayed. A small piece of evidence that I could show up before I was ready, and that doing so was exactly what would help me feel ready next time.
The difficult thing was still there on the drive home. But I was better able to observe it and not be captured by it. I arrived home, to the still-present challenge, slightly differently than I’d left.
That’s what carrying on actually is: not triumph, and not pretending.
Just returning to your own life before the difficult thing gives you permission to.
Three things to try.
1. Book the thing.
Identify one thing you’ve been postponing until things feel more settled.
Book it, plan it, or do it this week.
You don’t have to feel ready. The point is returning to your own life before it’s resolved.
2. Notice the difference between functioning and being present.
Functioning is going through the motions. Present means your attention is actually here: in the conversation, in the meal, in the walk.
Pick one moment today and try to be in it, rather than get through it.
3. Take stock at the end of the week.
Ask: what did I do this week that was just for me, or just for the pleasure of it?
If the answer is nothing, that’s information.
Carry on. Not because things are sorted, but because you’re still here.