The old version of me would still call this a crisis.
There was a time when this much responsibility, this much uncertainty, this many variables would have felt like an emergency. Therapy, time, and experience have changed that. I don’t react the same way anymore. I don’t spiral at every shift.
But that doesn’t mean it feels light.
Everything is on me now. Income. Care. Medications. Schedules. Appointments. If my son catches a cold, I already know what that usually means. Colds often mean more seizures. That’s just a fact. I can’t change it. I won’t panic when it happens. I won’t treat it like a catastrophe.
But I still have to carry it.
The structure of my day hasn’t changed much. That’s part of what makes this the middle. Morning follows night. Work follows the morning routine and school drop-off. Pickup follows work. Dinner follows pickup. Bedtime follows dinner. Then it starts again.
Each segment feels like a middle. The morning is between the night and the workday. The workday is between drop-off and pickup. The evening is between dinner and sleep. It’s like a loop that keeps folding back on itself. Nothing climactic. Nothing final. Just continuation.
The worst version of events hasn’t come to pass.
The things I used to brace for haven’t arrived.
But nothing has resolved either.
There are still things in motion. Still decisions that aren’t finished. Still outcomes I can’t control yet. I can see that an official “new life” is approaching, but even that feels like another middle. I’m not there yet. I’m here.
Here looks like waking up, working out, showering, making breakfast, and packing lunches. It looks like responding to seizures while my son sleeps in late, postictal. It looks like getting him ready for school, dropping him off, going to work, leaving early to pick him up, and finishing work at home. Walking the dogs. Chores. Hoping for a game of Fortnite together before dinner. Cleanup. Bedtime routine. Repeat.
It’s not dramatic. It’s not cinematic. It’s routine.
And maybe that’s what the long middle really is.
Not the beginning. Not the breakthrough. Not the clean ending. Just the steady stretch where responsibility becomes ordinary. Where weight doesn’t disappear, but it becomes familiar enough that you stop naming it every hour.
The house is quieter now. Less chaotic. There’s space where noise used to be. That space isn’t exactly peaceful, but it isn’t volatile either. It just is.
I don’t know what the future version of this life will look like. I know there are changes coming. I know certain realities are solidifying. But today is not about that.
Today is about the loop. About carrying what needs carrying. About not treating endurance like emergency.
The long middle isn’t dramatic.
It’s repetitive. It’s responsible. It’s unfinished.
And for now, it’s just the way it is.