the in-between: learning to float

I often return to water in my writing because it is how I make sense of movement, uncertainty, survival & change.

Water is also ancestral for me.

It carries the memory of forced journeys across the Atlantic, of displacement, endurance & arrival. Of ancestors who were forcibly taken to the Americas, who survived, moved again & eventually made their way to Britain, as well as of those who remained on the African continent, colonised & uprooted in other ways, whose journeys also led them to Britain where I came to be.

Water holds that history. It holds that motion. It holds that resilience. Perhaps that is why, when my life feels uncertain, I return to it.

Also, all my life, I feel like I have been navigating choppy waters.

Illustration representing me navigating choppy waters....

Swimming with my head down. Working relentlessly. Barely breathing. Believing that if I just kept going, kept striving, kept sacrificing, I would eventually reach this promised land called stability, belonging, security.

For a long time, I thought I could see it.

A permanent post. Continued funding. A clear academic future.

Then one day, I looked up & it was no longer there.

My contract had ended. Applications had not been successful. Funding had not come through. I was still affiliated through an honorary position, still committed to my research, still writing, speaking, creating. Yet institutionally, it felt like I was drifting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY5Zj9DqstA

I am writing this after a conversation with a friend who had just completed her PhD.

We were both honest. About exhaustion. About uncertainty. About not knowing what comes next. About her stepping out of doctoral life, & me standing at the end of my contract with no clear path ahead.

At one point, she gently described us as being in the in-between. Something in me opened because it resonated deeply. Because she was right. She put a word to the feeling, moment & space I found myself.

Right now, I have one foot inside the academy & one foot outside. 

I am no longer held by the same institutional weight. The same pressure to constantly perform, justify & compress myself into narrow definitions of 'success'.

This distance has brought clarity. I can think wider. I can imagine differently. I can breathe. & in this space, the possibility of an otherwise has begun to surface.

Lately, I have also noticed something else.

I am getting used to this space.

At first, the in-between felt unsettling. Too quiet. Too undefined. Too open. I kept waiting for urgency to return. For panic to push me back into motion.

But it has not.

Instead, I have begun to settle. To recognise its rhythms. To trust its pace. To see that this season is not empty. It is spacious. It is teaching me how to move without frenzy. How to think without fear. How to choose without desperation. I am learning that uncertainty does not always mean instability. Sometimes, it means possibility.

I am learning sovereignty.

Sovereignty is the quiet authority of the self. The ability to make decisions from clarity rather than fear. From values rather than desperation. From knowledge of your worth rather than external validation.

I practise it when I continue my research without a contract. When I write & speak because the work matters, not because it counts. When I pause without collapsing. When I ask: “what do I want?” instead of “what will make me acceptable?”

The in-between is where this sovereignty grows. Because the usual scaffolding falls away. No contract to cling to. No timeline to obey. No ladder to climb. So I ask: who am I without these structures?

& I answer: I am still a scholar. Still a thinker. Still a contributor. Still worthy. Still grounded.

I am floating.

My arms & legs, once aching with effort, spread wide. Supported. Sometimes dipped beneath the surface like small baptisms, welcoming me into the ease of the in-between.

This season is not easy. I have never been out of work since I was sixteen. I have always been responsible. Always prepared. Always planning. So yes, there is fear here. About money. About security. About the unknown. I am deeply grateful for my family. 

But there is also listening. There is reflection. There is permission. There is space to ask myself what kind of life, scholarship & contribution I truly want. There is space to finish my research with care. To prepare for talks with intention. To honour the work I have already done. To honour myself.

For Black women especially, trying to remain in institutions that were never designed with us in mind, this in-between can feel like failure. It is not.

It is a threshold. A place between the old definitions & the new possibilities. Between inherited survival & chosen flourishing.

I am not failing. I am arriving at myself.

This is not an ending. It is a recalibration.

As Toni Morrison reminds us, water has memory. Nothing I have given has been wasted. None of the labour. None of the discipline. None of the sacrifice. It lives in me.

Now it is being returned as wisdom.

So I lie back. Close my eyes. Trust. Let the water do some of the work. Let it offer what I thought the promised land would give me. Peace. Stability. Groundedness. Let it cleanse & renew me.

Illustration representing me floating in open waters...

If you are here too, in your own open water, uncertain, tired, questioning, I hope you know this:

You are not failing. You are arriving at yourself.

Right now, it is just me, the water & the sun.

& that is enough.

I am exactly where I need to be.

In the in-between.

Source: somewordsarebiggerthanothers