On Being Mid-Story of a Book That’s Writing Itself

Even I don’t know how it ends yet

Hello friend,

I've been re-thinking binaries and the space between. In a powerful coaching conversation I recently had, I learned I have been viewing myself through bifocal lenses - either as a hardass type A personality, or something that resembles a hippie laying in the grass. Through pointed questions and gentle coaxing from my coach, the realisation that both things can be true about me at the same time was gifted to me.

And what a lovely gift that was.

It threw everything I thought I knew about myself out the window (and quite honestly, perturbed the engineer in me who thinks in black and white) and I found myself standing on a blank page in a book about me - in the beginning of my middle age.

Advice pleasingly living in the middle of the book’s signature from Pádraig Ó Tuama, Iona, March 2025.

Knowing Where You’re Going

When I started telling people I was going on a sabbatical, folks were naturally curious about my plans, asking great questions like how long did I plan to be on a break for, what will I do, how will I spend my days, and to be perfectly honest, I was curious too.

I came up with an answer that sounded like: I intend to travel, coach and work on my writing - the three things that have consistently given me parcels of joy along my life - some of which I have been doing more consistently, others, like writing, had taken the backseat for years now.

It’s been programmed into us to be outcome-driven, prizing the finished product and knowing exactly what you’re working towards. This is me a lot of the time too, a result of years working in fast paced environments and personally just having the love of optimising everything I do.

But something was different about my sabbatical.

I had (and still have) very little idea about what outcomes I want to drive on my time off or how long this break is going to be, only a clear awareness that I have many buckets in my life that I want to fill, so I shall go about filling them.

When I share with folks that I intend to work on my writing, people often ask if I’m going to publish a book. I know this comes from a place of curiosity and perhaps excitement for me, however, the focus on outcome added a bit of unintended pressure to me. I tell them a book would be a wonderful outcome I’d love, but for now, I want to write to enjoy the process of writing, and to bathe in the joy of coming up with surprisingly beautiful phrases I read over and over again to savour the deliciousness of.

This sometimes gets met with polite confusion as folks internally battle the urge to categorize, and I help them with the processing. I tell them that even in my daily life I rarely ever know where I’m going and rely heavily on Google Maps to get anywhere - Google Maps didn’t have an answer when I asked where my sabbatical should take me. This usually releases some of the tension and even better, we get to have a little laugh.

And it’s so nice to laugh, isn’t it?

No spoilers, please!

What if life was more about flourishing in the mid-story bits and less about rushing to the (known) endings? What if we went about parts of our life the way we watch a good movie or series? Don’t tell us how it ends even before the beginning, give us unexpected twists that throw the whole storyline out of whack, relatable protagonists with strong character development arcs, rousing stories of redemption and most of all, let us shield our eyes from spoilers on social media.

Or what about those choose your own adventure books us 80s and 90s kids once held in our hands as we squabble with siblings over which route will take us to the best ending?

Give me a serendipitous ending I helped to create by excavating the messy middle.

Treading down the middle of Kusama’s Narcissus Garden. Surprise, it’s a soundscape too! Naoshima Island, May 2024. Photo credit: Melissa Yong

The Gifts of the Tangled In-between

There’s buried treasure in the messy middle. It is the place where things unfold and no tidy conclusion is in sight yet. Sitting here has taught me to be more tender with the process, because without the pressure to produce something, I find spaciousness to pay closer attention to people: how their noses wrinkle when they laugh, how their eyes light up when they’ve found something amusing, to nature: learning the call of the yellow-vented bulbuls who visit my windowsill some days, spotting critters on my walks to train for the Camino, or taking the time to stop mid-way to stare up at white-bellied sea eagles taking their time, gliding in big circles above us.

I don’t try to wrestle clarity from every moment anymore. Instead, I’m learning to honor things that emerge in their own time. I’m calmer, patient, and in calm and patience, empathy finds the room to thrive. It’s nice letting things surprise me, and this may well be one of the best gifts I’ve received.

An Invitation

So here I am, finding what’s hidden beneath the surface in the box that’s the messy middle. I invite you to rest here with me for a while, in fact, prolong your time in the part where things don’t make sense yet, and see how you become.

Untangling cables,
Min

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