Notes from the In-Between

Your boss says "can we chat later" and forty-five seconds later you've been fired, dumped, and unfriended, all in your head. Here's the pause that stops the spiral before it runs the whole show.

We all carry secrets, tell small lies, and buy into illusions that feel safer than the truth. This is about what happens when we finally stop, and what it costs us when we don't.

I'd never met my friend's mom. But standing next to her open casket, she made a joke, and we burst out laughing in front of a room full of horrified strangers. Thirty minutes later I was a weepy mess again. Both things happened. Neither one canceled the other out — and that's the part about grief nobody warns you about.

"I've got you" is what we say. It's not always what we do. Holding space is a specific practice, not a passing comfort, and most of us were never actually taught how.

Ed had severe osteoporosis. Edna's dementia had taken her ability to speak. Every day after lunch, he crouched down with warm water and a cloth to wash her feet anyway. I was their caregiver, and it taught me more about devotion, and its cost, than anything I'd learned before.

Grief doesn't care that you have a presentation on Thursday or a deadline on Friday. It follows you to work whether you're ready or not, and most of us have never been taught how to navigate loss while still showing up professionally. Learn how to here.