It is the title to my debut novel. The rift between my protagonist’s wants, needs, dreams, and nightmares. The space between herself and the voice in her head, between books and knowledge, happiness and sadness.
But it is more than that. More than the book that bears its name. More than the words to describe it.
It is the space between our thoughts. The breaks in our never-ending narrative; the moments when we aren’t spinning ideas, worries, concerns. Those moments some call meditation, others prayer, and still others exercise, dance, creativity or art. And yet they are all the same.
It is the seeming unending space between our realities and our dreams. The gap, the canyon, the hyperspace distance before our dream becomes our reality. You can cross that space with the smallest of steps, one after the other, or leaps and bounds, like astronauts bouncing on the moon. And yet we rarely do.
It is who we think we are and who we actually are — our identity, internally and externally. It is the gap between what we show the world and who we feel inside. It is the darkness we think we are and the lightness we beam to others. And yet we can’t define ourselves.
It is the silence between words, a lull in a song, a beat in a poem. It is the beauty of art in all its forms and facets. A pause to breathe, a pause to feel, a pause to read. And yet we fail to pause at all.
It is the moment before your world is changed forever, that slip in time, the calm before the storm. If we were to know what we know now about our time then, would we attempt to milk that moment, that space between moments, to drain it of all potential joy and love before that joy is tainted from what comes after the space between?
But most of all, it is the chasms that erupt between families, friends, and those we love. It is the void where pain, hurts, and resentments reside and fester. It is the darkness that divides, that silences, that breaks love. It is the space between a loving connection, a deep friendship, the love of a mother and a child that has been irrevocably broken.
It was my playground, my solace, my tormentor. I reveled in its darkness, consumed and obsessed by the drama it revealed, it encouraged, it drove. I spent years bathing in the thrumming emotions underneath it, in between it, running through it.
Its song became my song. Its message my message. Its rhythm my rhythm.
I wrapped its brokenness around me like a warm blanket, never knowing the warmth was my own blood seeping from wounds I caused. I lacerated my own soul with the shards I created, they created, we created together.
And then one day, I stopped. I stepped out of it. I wiggled my way free. I found a space between where it was not. It tried to lure me back with drama, my old friend, and victimhood, my old excuse. It poked and prodded my soft spots, my sore buttons of self-worth and value.
I was the bad one, the selfish one, the cruel one for escaping.
It is still there. Occasionally it catches me in its embrace, for a moment, a time, a remembrance. I look across and realize no bridge will ever be strong enough to cross its cavernous maw. New paths may be drafted. New bonds formed. New connections of scars and tissue so thin they slice open with a word, catching a weary traveler off guard.
You may survive the deep space between. You may never fall into its arms, so eager to embrace you. Or you may crawl out of it, bloody and broken.
But you can never deny it is there.
Originally published on Medium.