The Middle Mess

The Middle Mess: A Love Letter to the In-Between

There is a place between who I was and who I am becoming. It has no map, no signposts, no clear path. It is wild and raw and unpredictable. And this year, I find myself squarely in it. I’ve come to call it the Middle Mess.

It is not a phase I planned to write about. For a long time, I thought I would share my story when I had emerged. When I had gathered the insights, cleaned up the rubble, and could point to the transformation from a safe distance.

But Life had other plans. This year has asked me to share the becoming itself. To open the door and let you see the unraveling as it happens. To write from the spiral, not the summit. To invite you into the in-between, where things are still uncertain, still tender, still forming. 

It’s a place I now know intimately.

The Initiation of Loss

When my father passed away unexpectedly earlier this year, the ground beneath me gave way. There was no preparing for it. No bracing for the weight of that kind of loss. I had always known that grief was transformative, but what I didn’t know is how it would remake me. Not just emotionally, but spiritually, energetically, cellularly.

Grief didn’t come gently. It cracked me open.

Suddenly I was inside a new landscape, one that was both desolate and rich. I knew that everything familiar had shifted. I had dropped into a deep vulnerability I had never touched before. It was like falling into the ocean without knowing how to swim.

And yet, something remarkable began to happen inside that surrender. The more I allowed myself to feel, really feel, my deepest feelings of grief, longing, love, and ache, the more space I discovered inside me. As if my emotional body had expanded, stretched open by loss to hold something much vaster than I’d ever known before.

I found myself becoming.

Transformation Isn’t Pretty

We speak about transformation so beautifully, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, like the phoenix rising from the ashes.

But no one really talks about the mess in the middle.

The days when your skin feels too tight, but your soul feels too big. The nights when you cry for no reason and every reason at once. The moments when you don’t know what you’re doing anymore. When the roles you used to wear fall off one by one, and you are left naked, unsure, tender.

This is the Middle Mess.

It’s the place of dismantling. Of unbecoming. It’s where the old identity dies, but the new one hasn’t yet fully arrived. It’s where you sit in the ashes, unsure if you’ll ever rise.

And yet…

This is where the gold is.

Not the polished gold of performance or perfection. But the raw, molten gold of truth. Of feeling. Of presence.

Presence Is Medicine

In my own middle mess, I have discovered the sacred gift of presence.

There were moments I thought I would break. Moments when I didn’t want to be wise, or spiritual, or even functional. I just wanted someone to hold me. To be with me in the chaos, without needing to fix it.

And the Universe responded.

In those tender moments, people appeared. Not many, but enough. Each one a messenger of unconditional love. Each one showing up not with solutions, but with their grounded presence.

They didn’t try to clean up my mess. They didn’t offer advice or affirmations. They just sat with me.

They said with their energy: I’m here. You are not too much. I will not leave you in this.

And it was in their presence that something profound began to shift. Not externally. But within me.

I began to feel safe enough to stay.

Not to rise. Not to fix. But to be.

To be messy. To be real. To be undone.

The Poem That Found Me

One day, in the middle of it all, I wrote this poem. It came not from my mind, but from the very marrow of my experience. From the space between the falling apart and the coming together.

It’s called The Middle Mess.

There is a place between who I was and who I am becoming,
a place without shape, without certainty, without ground.
It is here, in the in-between,
that everything unravels.

This is the Middle Mess.

Where I am cracked wide open.
Where my soul is screaming and whispering all at once.
Where I no longer know what to hold onto,
because everything is slipping,
melting,
dissolving.

And still,
I stay.

I don’t run.
I don’t try to make it pretty.
I sit in the rubble.
I let the tears come.
I let the old fall away
not because I’m brave,
but because I cannot fake it anymore.

And in that rawness,
when I had nothing left to hold up,
you pulled me in.

You didn’t ask me to be strong.
You didn’t tell me to clean it up.
You let my tears fall freely,
soaking into your chest like prayers too broken for words.

You kissed my forehead.
You said:
"You are a mess… but a beautiful mess."

And with that...
I surrendered.

Not because I needed saving.
But because, in your arms, I was allowed to be everything,
messy, weeping, real.
Held, not healed.
Loved, not fixed.

That moment was a doorway.
A holy pause in the storm.
A taste of love that doesn’t fear the fire.
That sees the chaos and says,
I still want to be here with you.

I don’t know what comes next.
I don’t know who I’ll be on the other side.
But I know this:

There is sacredness in the mess.
There is beauty in the breaking.
There is love in the in-between.

And I will not rush my rising.
I will let myself be
undone.
soft.
true.

An Invitation to Be Human

I share this not just for myself, but for you.

For the you who is also in the in-between. For the you who doesn’t know what’s next. For the you who feels broken, undone, uncertain. I want you to know: you are not alone.

The path of becoming is not linear. It is not tidy. It is spiral-shaped. It loops and twists and doubles back. It surprises you. It humbles you. It softens you.

And in the softness, you begin to bloom.

You are allowed to be in the Middle Mess. You are allowed to not have answers. You are allowed to be real, raw, and in process.

You are allowed to be held.

And if you need someone to sit beside you in the rubble, to remind you that you are lovable even now, especially now, I’m here.

Not to lead you. Not to fix you. But to witness your becoming. To walk with you through the fire. To remind you of the truth: There is beauty in this mess, too.

Because this, this spiraling, shaking, tender place, is where the soul becomes real. This is where the sacred enters. This is where love meets us.

Exactly as we are.

With love from the in-between,

Cindy