Welcome…

There's an A.A. Milne poem I've loved since I was small. It's called Halfway Down, and it goes like this:

Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit.

There isn't any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop.

...

It isn't really

Anywhere!

It's somewhere else

Instead! [1]

I memorized it as a kid without understanding why it stuck. I understand now.

The halfway stair is a real place. Not a failure to be at the top. Not a retreat to the bottom. Just a stair where you sit for a while, with all sorts of funny thoughts running round your head, because you're in the middle of something and you're not quite ready to move yet.

If you're here, you’re probably familiar with that stair.

Maybe something in your life has shifted, or is shifting, and you haven't quite caught up with it yet. A birthday with a zero in it. Kids who don't need you the same way anymore. A career that fit beautifully once and feels empty/over/unfulfilling. A relationship that ended, or changed, or became something different than what it was. Or, just a sense that who you've been and who you're becoming haven't quite met in the middle yet.

That's the in-between. And it's a legit place to be.

This guide isn't going to rush you off that stair. It's going to sit with you for a while, and then help you use travel as an accomplice while you figure out the next bit. Not travel as escape. Not travel as therapy. Travel to create the space to sort out all the roles that have been rearranging around you.

Onward.