In the Middle of Somewhere and Nowhere

 

I picked up a passenger one day. The location was kind of in between the big city and the country. You know those types of places. It’s close enough to the city to get there when you need to, but far enough away that you still get that laid-back country vibe.

But it’s not quite the city or the country.

“So, are we in the middle of nowhere?” My passenger asked me.

I replied, “We’re on the outskirts of nowhere.”

He kind of laughed at that, and we continued the ride in silence.

But the exchange got me thinking about those periods in our lives where we’ve left one destination, and haven’t yet arrived at the next destination.

We tend to imagine life as a series of destinations. The new job. The big opportunity. The finished project.

Truth be told, most of our lives are lived in that “in between” area between one destination to the next.

A career is made up the journey from one milestone to the next; completing one project to another.

Learning a skill, maybe an instrument, and performing it at a high level is not a destination; it’s an adventure by itself.

Raising a family is no destination, and it certainly doesn’t end when the children finish high school. You’ll spend far more time as your children’s parent while they’re adults than while they’re children. And truth be told, we grow right alongside our children in our own way.

We imagine the destination as the important part, but the destination is always fleeting.

People spend years preparing to climb Mt. Everest, and then if and when they get there, they’ll enjoy the view for all of 15 minutes before it’s time to head back to the camp.

Honestly more often than not, we find ourselves on the outskirts of both somewhere and nowhere.

The middle.

The middle can be uncomfortable because it feels undefined. The old life is behind us, but the new life hasn’t quite yet arrived.

You know you’re moving.

You just can’t quite see where it’s leading.

A lot of people feel that way right now about the world itself.

We’re living in a time where many of the assumptions people once had about culture, institutions, and even basic social norms feel unsettled.

Old structures are weakening. New ones haven’t fully formed yet.

It feels like society itself is driving down a long highway between two destinations, looking out at the landscape and wondering where exactly we are.

We’re definitely somewhere.

But we’re also in the middle of nowhere.

But when you think about it, the middle isn’t empty at all.

The middle is where the work happens.

It’s where skills are built. It’s where character is formed, tested, and perfected. It’s where patience is learned. It’s where identity quietly takes shape while nobody is watching.

The destination is what people notice. It’s where we take in the praise of men, and think about the journey, the hard work that went in to making it there.

And truth be told, the destination is fun. It’s what gives life meaning.

But the middle, that place between somewhere and nowhere, is what makes the destination possible.

The musician’s performance may last 12 minutes, but the preparation for that perfomrance has gone on for years, and will continue almost immediately after the stage lights go dim.

The writer’s finished book may sit on the reader’s shelf, but the real story happened in the thousands of quiet hours when the ending wasn’t yet visible.

The middle is not boring. It’s where the real story lives.

So if you ever find yourself feeling like you’re in the middle of somewhere and nowhere, it doesn’t mean you’re lost. (But don’t be so confident in yourself that you rule out that possibility.)

It could very well be you’re exactly where the important part of the journey happens.

Not at the destination.

But in the long stretch of road that leads there.

I’m James Newcomb, and that’s what I meant to say.