Stuck in the space in between

As I sat on my balcony with a great cup of coffee in one of my oldest and favorite mugs, on one of Nashville’s most perfect mornings, I looked out over downtown and the amphitheater. The mug was from my single mom days, and it’s a real miracle that it’s survived this long. I remember when I first bought it, and the second I saw it in the department store it made me smile. He exuded happiness in my usually gray world. I sat on my balcony and thought about that cup and that moment in my life, forcing me to remember this weekend when Dave Matthews was playing in the amphitheater right on my balcony. I’ve been listening to Dave Matthews ever since I’ve had that mug and when he started playing one of my favorite songs, “The Space Between,” he took me back in time.

When I heard Dave Matthews sing “The Space Between” for the first time, it had a completely different meaning than it did on Saturday night. The first time I heard that song I took it in its most literal sense. For me, it was about a boy and a love that should never have happened but it did. A love that would never become what I had wanted it to be. Fast-forward fifteen years later, and I’m sitting on my balcony with a boy who brought me out of the shadows and brought my soul to life. So that cold Saturday night, my son and I snuggled under the covers listening to Dave sing The Space Between and my mind was forced to listen to that song differently. It has become more of a song about me as a person than a love I wish I had.

If you know me, you know that I struggle to find my purpose in life. I’m always chasing “what’s next”, “now what”. I have a big problem with waking up and not having a plan for the day. That struggle is less when I’m working, but my new life brings work in spades. When I’m working, I run a million miles an hour. Usually seven days a week, often 10-12 hours a day, but when the show or project is over and I’m home, it’s like I’ve hit a brick wall. I’m usually exhausted, longing for my chicken faces, my own bed, and coffee in my favorite mug on my balcony. Once I’m off that brick wall, drank all my coffee, slept longer than sleeping beauty, and hugged my chickens until they yelped “mama, my ribs” I find myself in the space between and I’m so lost in that space as it was 15 years ago.

I don’t like that in-between space, I feel so restless when I’m sitting in that space, and as a person who hates change more than he hates peas, it makes me want change. I think that if I change something that restlessness will disappear and something will fill that space between, anything. Currently, I have no new job on the horizon, no projects in the works, no real plans for the future. Life is a completely blank canvas, and I can do almost anything I want to do, anything to fill that space, and it’s very frustrating for me. Don’t get me wrong; I am thankful for everything I have in my life, a great apartment, great kids, a great husband. I am well aware of how far I have come, and I know that not everyone is “lucky” to sit on a flower-filled balcony overlooking America’s newest “IT” city downtown with a cup of coffee and contemplate life.

Right now I don’t have any answers on how to fill that in-between space and the best thing I can do right now is fill that cup with more coffee, sit on my balcony and wait for the warm Nashville breeze to blow something into that space and fill it up.