Observations and Inferences

Surprise: I'm leaving New York! I'm in the process of packing up my whole life (again) and moving down to the Washington, DC area. This transition has me thinking a lot about coping with change, or the idea of being in-between.

We've been talking a lot about this at Pretty Decent this month, mainly because it's a question so many people struggle with. When we're in-between, in the messy middle, it can get real anxious real fast.

After all, if you're always waiting for the next thing to happen, you inevitably start sweating a little wondering when it'll arrive (or how it'll feel when it finally does).

When it comes to coping with change, or being comfortable in-between, to me it becomes a question about tension.

What do we do with the tension that comes up when we're in-between big life changes?

The feeling I've had for the past few weeks is almost like the moment right before a big sneeze. My body feels taught, rigid — like it's waiting for something that hasn't happened yet, but ...

Last night, I found myself scrolling through Pretty Decent's Instagram feed. If there had been a microphone in my head at the time, I'm certain it would've picked up the rumblings of...

...well, to be frank, a hater.

"This looks like shit," I thought bitingly to myself.

Naturally, I then went and looked for all of the Instagram accounts in my industry who were clearly doing a much better job than me at branding. Their perfectly kerned text and color-coordinated feeds sneered at me from the other side of my phone.

I felt my body tense. I'm sure if I had done a scan at that moment, I would've noticed clenched shoulders, a tightened chest. One thing I know for certain: It didn't feel good.

Luckily, I caught myself before I archived my entire feed and decided to quit social media and give up on all of my hopes and dreams. As I decided to be intentional about my reaction, a single thought popped into my head:

"No, it's not as good as it could be. But it's good enough for now — and tha...