As I sat on my balcony with a large cup of coffee in one of my oldest and favorite mugs, on one of Nashville’s most perfect mornings, I looked out over downtown and the amphitheater. The mug was from my single mom’s days, and it’s a true miracle that it survived so long. I remember the first time I bought it and the second time I saw it in the department store it made me smile. I exuded happiness in my generally gray world. I sat on my balcony and thought about that cup and that moment in my life, which made me remember this weekend when Dave Matthews was playing in the amphitheater right next to my balcony. I’ve been listening to Dave Matthews since I had that mug and when he started playing one of my favorite songs, “The Space Between,” it took me back in time.
When I heard Dave Matthews sing “The Space Between” for the first time, it had a completely different meaning than on Saturday night. The first time I heard that song, I took it at its most literal meaning. For me, it was about a child and a love that should never have happened, but did. A love that would never be what I had wanted. Fast forward fifteen years later, and I’m sitting on my balcony with a boy who pulled me out of the shadows and breathed life into my soul. So that cold Saturday night my son and I snuggled under the covers listening to Dave sing The Space Between and my mind was forced to hear that song differently. It has become more of a song about me as a person than a love I wish I had.
If you know me, you will know that I struggle to find my purpose in life. I’m always chasing “what’s next”, “now what”. I have a big problem waking up and not having a plan for the day. That struggle is less when I’m working, but my new life brings work in spades. When I’m working, I run a million miles per hour. Usually seven days a week, often 10-12 hours a day, but when the show or project is over and I’m home, it’s like I’ve crashed into a brick wall. I’m usually exhausted, longing for the faces of my chicken, my own bed, and coffee in my favorite mug on my balcony. Once I detached myself from that brick wall, I drank all the coffee, slept longer than sleeping beauty and hugged my chickens until they yelled “Mommy, my ribs”, I am in the middle space and I am so lost in that. space as it was 15 years ago.
I don’t like that space in between, I feel so restless when I’m sitting in that space, and like a person who hates change more than he hates peas, it makes me yearn for change. I think that if I change something that restlessness will disappear and something will fill that intermediate space, anything. Currently, I have no new job on the horizon, no project in the works, no real plan for the future. Life is a completely blank canvas, and I can do almost anything I want to do, anything to fill that space, and it’s very frustrating for me. Do not misunderstand; I am grateful for everything I have in my life: a great apartment, great kids, great husband. I am well aware of how far I’ve come, and I know that not everyone is “lucky” to sit on a flower-filled balcony looking out at the center of America’s newest “IT” city with a cup of coffee and contemplate life.
Right now I don’t have any answers on how to fill that space and the best I can do now is fill that cup with more coffee, sit on my balcony and wait for the warm Nashville breeze to blow something into that space and fill it up.