About Between Selves

I’m the founder and CEO of an information technology consulting company. That’s not what this is about, but it’s the room I’m writing from.

For most of my life I was the one who held it together. I took that job young, somewhere around the time I understood that things could fall apart, and I was good at it. It built everything I have.

A year ago several things came apart at once.

My body started changing in ways I didn’t recognize and couldn’t explain. My business moved in a direction I hadn’t chosen. Questions I’d been postponing for years, about family, about time, about what I actually wanted, stopped being willing to wait.

And the version of me that had gotten me here quietly stopped working.

I’m still figuring out what that means. Between Selves is where I do that figuring, out loud.

What I keep coming back to

For a long time I think I was asking one question without ever saying it out loud. How do I build a life where I finally feel safe?

I answered it, in a way. I built the thing. And then I noticed that the fear I thought I’d outrun had come with me anyway, which made me wonder whether it was ever really about money, or stability, or the company at all.

I’m still sitting with that one.

So that’s what this is. What I was actually building, and what I was running from. What my body was saying long before I had language for it. What it costs to be the strong one for that many years, and whether it’s a role you can ever set down.

I’m not writing from the other side of any of this. I’m in the middle of it. Most of what’s here is me correcting something I used to believe.

Who it’s for

If you’re someone who looks steady from the outside and doesn’t always feel it on the inside, I think this might be for you.

You’re probably the person other people come to. You have the title, the responsibility, some version of the life you were building toward. And there may be almost no one you can say “I don’t know who I am right now” to, because you’re the one who’s supposed to know.

I can’t fix that, and I’m not going to try. No frameworks here, no five steps. What I can do is say the honest thing out loud, and maybe make it a little less lonely to be the one holding everything together.

Start here

I Rationalized Instead of Listening, how long I spent explaining it away

The Fear I Thought I Left Behind, why losing ground felt like being seventeen again

I Thought There Would Be Time, what I postponed and what didn’t wait

What to expect

New essays when they’re ready, not on a schedule. Usually a couple a month. Free, and staying that way.

The name

It’s fairly literal. I’m somewhere between the woman who built this life and the woman who’s learning to live inside it. I don’t know how long that lasts. I’ve stopped assuming it ends.