There is a particular kind of not-knowing that feels like being lost but is not actually being lost.

It feels like fog. Like the visibility is down and you cannot see where you are going and the familiar landmarks have gone soft and indistinct and you are not sure which direction is forward.

There is a version of getting through the day that does not get nearly enough credit.

Not the version where everything goes well and you feel productive and capable and like yourself. That version gets plenty of credit. We celebrate that one. We share it, post it, hold it up as evidence that we are doing fine.

You can feel it coming. The tilt of the light in the evening. The calendar filling back in. The sense that the long loose days of summer are closing and something is about to start asking more of you.

We spent this month with the I don't know.

Not trying to fix it. Not trying to move through it faster. Just looking at it honestly.

We have been sold a version of forward motion that requires a destination.

You have to know where you are going before you start.

There is a difference between growing and accommodating and most of us have been confusing them for a long time.

Growing is what happens when something true in you expands.

We are very good at solving things.

Give us a problem with edges and we will work it until it yields. We have been doing this our entire lives.

We spent this month in the territory of the hinge.

The before that does not announce itself. The last time we did not know was the last time.

There is a specific kind of not-knowing that has nothing to do with weakness.

Most hard things have a category. Grief goes to one closet. Anger goes to another.

We are very good at identifying the moment.

The conversation. The diagnosis. The day someone said something that changed the air in the room. We point to it and say: that.

Most of us do not notice the last time until long after it has passed.

The last morning it felt like yours. The last Tuesday you moved through without the weight of the thing you did not yet know.

We spent this month looking at what we put on. The wall. The glass house. The performance. All of it.

This week we are talking about the raincoat.

Optional. Useful. Always our choice.

New post is up. If this landed for you, send it to one woman who needs to read it today.

Every time I walk into a room and do what I do, every single one of them meets me. Just not all of me.

That is the performance. The one that does not just protect. The one that presents so well it becomes the whole story.

New post is up. If this sounds like you, send it to one woman who would know exactly what you mean.

We walked in, read the temperature, and adjusted. Automatically. Reliably. Without deciding to.

We have been doing it so long it feels like us.

It is not us. Or rather, it is not all of who we are.

We think about it every morning. What the day requires. What the room calls for. Sometimes it starts with a feeling. For me, it starts with my socks. Either way, we know. We have always known how to dress for the day we are actually having.

Most of us are very good at this. We have been doing it our whole lives.

Well. Here we are at the end of May.

True and truth are not the same thing. We may have been carrying something as fact for decades that was never actually our truth. The ones underneath all of it, those are ours. They always were.

New post is up.

thereturningproject.com/journey

Well, hello there. Today I have turned 64.

64 feels like 54 but older. The body parts have staged a quiet revolt. I still cannot reliably dress myself. I am almost always never late. And somewhere along the way I crossed a line I did not notice crossing.

New post is up. thereturningproject.com/journey  |  thereturningproject.com/let-it-stand

Happy Mother's Day. And Happy Mother Day, no apostrophe, no s, for everyone else who does not fit the Hallmark definition but shows up anyway.

The most stubborn stories are not always the ones that hurt the most. Sometimes they are just the ones that seemed the most obvious. New post is up.

How did we learn who we are? We learned from the people around us. From the moment we arrived. Not with a formal pronouncement. Just in everyday life.

The story started before we had language. And it has not stopped since. NOT FOR ONE SECOND.

We made it to the end of April.

Not the end of the journey. Not the end of the committee, which is still very much in session and still has opinions about your sock selection and at least seven other things before 8am. But the end of this particular walk together. And before we step into May I want to take one moment to look at what actually happened here.

Because something did happen. Even if it was quiet. Even if it was small. Even if the committee barely noticed.