Middles

I have a hard time imagining middles. I frequently visualize how something will be when I finish it. But I rarely visualize the process of getting there, the middle. It might be why I get bogged down in the middle of a lot of quilting projects, certain parts of the middle of the process of quilting don’t appeal to me (like stitching down binding). I imagine the finished quilt and how great it will look, but I don’t imagine all the time I’ll spend working on it.

I imagine standing at the starting line of a race and crossing the finish line. And I do go out, especially for bigger races, and see the whole course so I have the whole thing in my mind and can picture every mile. But I don’t necessarily imagine what it will be like running those miles.

I imagined myself married, but never engaged. I enjoyed being engaged, but it wasn’t a destination on its own, it was a middle.

I imagined myself graduating with my degrees, but the work in the middle was fuzzy (and that’s probably a good thing). I imagined wearing the graduation robes and getting the diploma, not so much the stacks of research articles, boxes of measures, and late nights grading insane undergraduate assignments (the assignments themselves were fine, but when completed by certain undergraduates with questionable mental facilities, took on a flare for the insane).

I imagined myself very pregnant, but not the middle area and definitely not getting pregnant. I knew that I wouldn’t go from my pre-pregnant waist to my very pregnant waist over night, but the middle pregnant size still seemed odd to me.

I have imagined myself with kids at various ages but I think that’s partially because I’ve studied and worked with kids of all ages. Which makes that a series of ends rather than a bunch of middles. I never imagined the middle between pregnancy and the child. I don’t think you can truly imagine labor though.

Life is either all middle or a series of ends. Perhaps each day, each event, is a final accomplishment in its own right before moving on to the next one.