A HOPEFUL HEART â—½ YOU
Held in the In-Between
By Christina Oberon
There are seasons in life where we find ourselves suspended between what was and what might be, held in a space that doesn't offer direction, only quiet unfolding.
Lately, I've come to know this space more intimately than I expected. It's where two realities seem to exist at once, where hope and uncertainty sit side by side without resolution. Where I stand at a crossroads, still holding a desire to grow my family and give my son a sibling, while also learning to support a body that is changing, quietly and persistently in the way that perimenopause changes things.
This space doesn't invite quick decisions. It doesn't hand you a next step or a timeline. It asks something harder: to stay. To stay present in a body that feels different. To stay open when possibilities feel murky. To stay grounded when the path ahead is anything but steady.
For a long time, I believed growth required movement, that clarity would come through action, and that peace would arrive once a decision had been made. But this season has undone that. Years of seeking answers to infertility, moving through surgeries and treatments and quiet hopes, only to meet disappointment. And now, here, there is no clear direction to move toward. There is only the invitation to be. Which can feel, honestly, like its own kind of loss.
There are moments when I want to rush ahead, to name what this season means, to understand what my body is doing, to land somewhere that feels certain. But I'm slowly accepting that not every season is meant to be resolved. Some are meant to be lived through and felt, even honored in their uncertainty.
This in-between is not empty. It is not wasted time. It is not a sign that something has gone wrong.
It is a place where my body is asking for care instead of pressure. Where expectations are loosening their grip. Where control is slowly, reluctantly, giving way to trust. And where I am reminded (sometimes gently, sometimes not) that I am not alone. Even when the answers don't come. Even when the future looks different than I once imagined, there is something steady beneath me. Something I can't always see, but can begin to feel when I allow myself to slow down enough to notice it.
I'm learning that it's okay to hold both things at once - to honor the hope for what could be, while tending to the reality of what is. To care for my body today without abandoning the desires I still carry. To live inside the tension without needing to resolve it.
This season isn't asking me to choose a direction yet. It's asking me to remain open. To listen more closely. To soften where I've been holding too tightly.
And to trust that even here in the questions, in the waiting, in the unknown, I am not lost.
I am held.