In Between and Everywhere All At Once

Driving through the mountains this week during Fall Break, I’ve been thinking about the feeling that comes when you’re somewhere in between—when you’re standing in two spaces at once and somehow fully in both.

In schools, that feeling never really goes away. You’re always aware of time moving in two directions—especially in leadership. There’s the day-to-day: the questions that need answering, the conversations that can’t wait, the decisions that shape the next hour more than the next year. And then there’s the longer view: the next board meeting, the rest of the year, the version of the school you’re trying to build.

Most days, at least for me, it’s this constant back-and-forth between those two ways of keeping time.

Maybe that’s why fall feels so familiar. It’s both the beginning of the end of one kind of year—the traditional calendar year—and the end of the beginning of the school year. Things settle a little, the air changes, but there’s still something humming underneath it all.

Most people live in that in-between space—not just in schools, but in life. It often feels like we’re all waiting on something: the next job, the baby, the house, the person, the thing that feels like the next step. We talk a lot about being present, about not living for the weekend or the next break, but those markers matter too. They give shape to time.

I don’t always do this well—staying present while also thinking ahead—but I find myself thinking about it often. Maybe that’s part of it: the noticing, the trying, the awareness itself.

So maybe the real work is figuring out how to live in both. To hold the anticipation and the enough-ness at the same time. To notice the peace that comes when you’re right in the middle of it all—not quite here, not quite there, but somehow fully in both.