We don’t have a by-line for Jonathan Scrivens on the blog…he wrote this. He and I were talking one day and he spoke about the living agony of awaiting his child’s birth these days–the waiting, the unknown.  So often, when people write, they write from the perspective of the ending…after it is over.  They write from the space of relief. Jonathan Scrivens is in the messy middle of tortuous waiting…and it is in this space I asked him to write. To write about being in the place of anxiety and tension, of fear and hope. I asked him to write about this, not yet knowing the ending. He bravely did so:

Borderland…  I read a book that discussed this idea, this space.  The author, Mark Buchanan, described Borderland as space that is nowhere.

Well, it is somewhere, but is unclaimed land, a space that, in a sense, is incomplete… nothing.

You leave a country and the space between the country you left and the one you’re heading towards is a liminal space, the space between.

Borderland is the time of journeying towards what is to come, but you’ve left what was before.

Waiting is difficult.

When you add the detail of waiting for a new child to be born it feels incrementally more difficult.  When you add that the previous full-term, healthy pregnancy ended with a stillbirth… well, waiting gets exponentially more difficult.

Tortuous, really.

I am living in a liminal space, a borderland. My wife and I took the risk to try pregnancy again, to leave the certainties of what was, to risk and head out into the unknown–hoping that at the end of the space between we would discover hope and life at the other end.

We tried the “ignorance is bliss” mentality but our three year old son brought things back to reality through comments like,  “The baby is in your tummy?  Does it have toys?  Can I give it some to play with in there?”  Such simplicity, such naïveté – can we live with that again?  We have a specific hope but is it too naïve?   A baby that is alive is our main hope… But is that realistic?

We’ve been here before and the questions start to come:

Is the baby ok?  Are you sure you’re feeling movement?

What if the Obstetrician is wrong about this being another healthy pregnancy?  It didn’t end well last time…

And perhaps, the biggest, most heart-wrenching question that circles on endless repeat in our souls:

How will we survive if another baby dies?

These questions and more surface as my wife and I journey this “space between” of pregnancy, between what was and what is to come.  And the uncertainties, the anxiety, can take our breath away as we wonder if the risk is worth it.  Will it end in despair and death or joy and life?

In this borderland of my own life, I’ve become even more keenly aware of how clients often come to therapy in a borderland time of their own. One filled with anxiety and hope, despair and struggle, and a desire to move forward to a place of destination.  A destination that has better relationships, inner quiet, and a sense of richness that borderland doesn’t/can’t have.

I believe in therapy.  It has helped me in my own struggles and I have experienced the hope that can come as a client, sitting with a therapist who desires to provide a safe and compassionate space for others.

Clients come to therapy, often entering their own borderland, between what was, and not yet knowing what is to come.  To leave a known something, even when it is uncomfortable and painful, to an unknown borderland, not knowing the destination until you get there can be terrifying.

What enables this journey is courage.  Courage to take the risk, to push through the anxiety and seek relationship, community and hope rather than the isolation that often accompanies struggles with mental health.

You are not alone.  Therapists are not perfect; we struggle as real people with real problems just the same as those we sit across from.

Consider taking the risk, to stepping out in courage, to journeying into your own borderland.  It’s risky, and terrifying…and just may lead to a life you never thought possible.