There is a strange place between who you used to be and whoever you’re becoming next.
I’ve been there.
Maybe I’m still there.
You know you’ve changed because certain things don’t fit anymore.
Conversations feel different.
Things you once tolerated irritate you now.
You don’t react to situations in quite the same way.
Some relationships feel unfamiliar, even though the people haven’t changed.
And things you once desperately wanted don’t seem quite as important.
But when somebody asks what you do want?
That’s harder to answer.
For a while, I thought this meant I was lost.
Now I’m not so sure.
Maybe there are periods in life when we’re simply between versions of ourselves.
Nobody really talks about the middle
We love a transformation story.
The before.
The difficult bit.
The beautiful after.
Everything wrapped neatly enough to explain in a caption.
Real life hasn’t worked like that for me.
There have been chapters where I knew something needed to change long before I knew what should replace it.
I’ve walked away from ways of thinking without immediately finding new ones.
I’ve become uncomfortable with things I once accepted.
I’ve questioned decisions I thought I’d already made peace with.
I’ve looked at myself and thought:
I know I’m not her anymore.
And then immediately wondered:
So who am I now?
That’s the part we don’t seem to celebrate very much.
The unfinished part.
Sometimes growth feels more like loss
I used to imagine personal growth would feel empowering all the time.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes growth is uncomfortable because the old version of you knew how to survive in places the new version no longer wants to live.
There can even be grief in that.
You can miss people you’ve outgrown.
You can miss a life you know wasn’t right for you.
You can miss the familiarity of an old version of yourself without actually wanting her life back.
I’ve had to learn that missing something doesn’t always mean I should return to it.
Sometimes it simply means it mattered.
That’s different.
Motherhood changed me in ways I didn’t expect
There are parts of myself I probably wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t become a mother.
Motherhood made me look at things I’d previously been able to ignore.
What kind of home do I want to create?
What do I want my daughter to learn from watching me?
What do I want her to believe about love?
About boundaries?
About confidence?
About getting things wrong?
And perhaps the hardest one:
Would I want her to accept some of the things I’ve accepted for myself?
That question has stopped me in my tracks more than once.
Because children don’t only listen to what we tell them.
They’re watching how we live.
And sometimes wanting something different for your child forces you to admit that you deserve something different too.
I’ve stopped trying to rush into the next version of myself
There was a time when uncertainty made me uncomfortable.
I wanted plans.
Answers.
Dates.
Something I could point towards and say, There. That’s where I’m going.
I’m slowly becoming more comfortable with not knowing.
Not completely comfortable, let’s not get carried away.
I still like a plan.
But I’m learning that uncertainty isn’t always a warning sign.
Sometimes it means you’ve finally stopped forcing yourself into something that no longer fits.
There doesn’t have to be an immediate replacement.
An empty space isn’t automatically a problem.
Maybe some spaces need to stay empty for a while.
I don’t want to become a “better version” of myself
I hear that phrase everywhere.
Become the best version of yourself.
I’ve probably used it myself at some point.
But lately, I don’t think I want that.
“Better” makes it sound as though the person I was before wasn’t good enough.
She was.
She was doing what she knew how to do.
She made decisions with the information she had.
She survived things I now have the luxury of reflecting on.
I don’t want to reject her.
I want to understand her.
Thank her, perhaps.
And then allow her to change.
I’m less interested now in becoming impressive.
I’d rather become honest.
Someone who knows when something doesn’t feel right.
Someone who doesn’t abandon herself just to keep everybody else comfortable.
Someone who can change her mind without treating it as failure.
Someone who doesn’t need every chapter of her life to make sense while she’s still living it.
I’m not completely there.
Maybe that’s the point.
Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle too
Maybe the person you were a year ago feels strangely distant.
Maybe you’ve changed and nobody around you seems to have noticed yet.
Maybe you’ve stopped wanting something you once prayed for.
Maybe you’re reconsidering what happiness actually looks like for you.
Or perhaps nothing dramatic has happened at all.
You just know something inside you has shifted.
You don’t need to name the new version of yourself yet.
You don’t need a five-year plan for her.
You don’t need to announce your transformation.
You can simply notice what’s changing.
There is something quite beautiful about meeting yourself without already deciding who you’re supposed to become.
A page for you
If you have a notebook nearby, give yourself a few minutes with these.
Don’t try to make the answers profound.
Just make them yours.
Something that used to matter to me but doesn’t as much anymore is…
A version of myself I’m ready to stop performing is…
Something I’ve outgrown but still find difficult to release is…
Lately, I’ve been wanting more…
Something I would choose differently today is…
And finally:
If I didn’t have to explain my choices to anybody, what might I choose next?
You don’t have to know what any of it means yet.
Leave the answers on the page.
Come back to them another day.
You might be surprised by what your own words eventually show you.
If you’re somewhere between who you were and who you’re becoming…
That’s exactly the kind of space I want The Morish Journal to hold.
Not a place where somebody gives you five steps to fix your life.
A place to think.
To write.
To question.
To notice yourself changing.
If you’d like to stay, you can join the journal below.
I send quiet reflections, private journal prompts and occasional letters from the messy middle of becoming.
You don’t need to arrive as the finished version of yourself.
None of us have.
Elorine
From The Morish Journal