THE LONG MIDDLE
NEW STORIES EVERY WEEK on substack
The Checkout Line Where My Body Ran Out
An ordinary errand, an unexpected body crash,
and the quiet math of staying upright.
To read the story , click here
Naked in the Dark
A raw, late-night reckoning with fear, illness, and survival — what the body remembers when the world goes silent.
The Shape Of Ease
A reflection on learning to move through the world gently--finding grace, calm, and balance after years of endurance.
You Don’t Look Sick
A candid reflection on invisibility, judgment, and what it really means to live with an illness the world can’t see.
The First Thing I Chose to Love Again
A quiet mediation on rediscovering tenderness after loss--how love returns first in the smallest, most ordinary ways.
When the Day Changed Overnight
The morning the map burned, and the world held its breath.
To read the story, click here
What Illness Taught Me About Story
A craft reflection on how chronic illness reshapes the way we tell stories — teaching patience, presence, and truth over perfection.
The Mask Slips
A personal story about what happens when titles fall away, the body changes, and identity quietly rearranges itself after survival.
Resilience: A First-Person Reckoning
After surviving hospice, learning to live again without a map.
Joy Has No Expiration Date
A small story about a childhood sandwich, an expired jar of fluff, and the quiet reminder that joy doesn’t always arrive new — sometimes it arrives remembered.
The Two I'm Fines
A small, simple practice for when “I’m fine” is a reflex instead of the truth. It helps you name one thing you can say out loud and one thing you can keep quietly for yourself.
A story from the Long Middle — about belonging, disappearance, and finding your way
back into the room.
The Long Middle — A Master Map
This is not a reading list.
It’s a landscape.
If you’ve found your way here, you’re likely standing in a season where life feels altered — not broken, not resolved, just different. The old map doesn’t quite work anymore, and the new one hasn’t fully appeared.
This page is a way to move gently through that space.
Choose what you need today:
A question to orient you 🧭
A story to stand inside ✨
Or a field note to steady you 🌿
You don’t have to read everything. You only have to choose a marker that feels like where you are right now.
🧭 Compass Points — The Questions
Begin here if life feels unfamiliar.
The Compass Points are ten orienting questions for the Long Middle — the stretch of life that comes after crisis, illness, loss, or upheaval, when survival is over but life hasn’t fully settled again.
These pages don’t tell you what to do. They help you notice what’s already happening inside you — in your body, your relationships, and your sense of meaning.
→ What Happened?
Pause here before trying to fix or move forward. This is a place to survey the ground, notice what’s steady, and name what changed.
[Read Compass Point 1]
→ Who Am I Now?
For the moment after survival, when the old version of yourself no longer fits and the new one hasn’t quite taken shape.
[Read Compass Point 2]
→ Who Stands With Me Now?
On the circle that shrinks, deepens, and reshapes itself in the quiet after the emergency ends.
[Read Compass Point 3]
→ What Has Meaning Now?
For noticing what still matters when the life you built no longer looks the same.
[Read Compass Point 4]
→ What Is Essential Now?
About learning what you can release — and what you quietly refuse to let go of.
[Read Compass Point 5]
(More Compass Points will appear here as the map continues to unfold.)
✨ Stories — The Places
Moments from inside the Long Middle.
These are personal narratives — some open to read, some held for publication, some offered as brief openings. Each one is a place to stand for a while and notice what rises.
→ The Part of Illness No One Warns You About (Open)
On belonging, disappearance, and finding your way back into the room.
[Read]
→ Two North Stars (Held for publication)
On intuition, structure, and learning what guides you.
[About this piece]
→ The Sounds That Stay (Excerpt)
A meditation on memory, home, and what continues.
[Read an opening]
→ Just a Mailbox (Open)
On visibility, identity, and the quiet act of claiming space.
[Read]
→ Fluffernutter, Sticky Joy (Open)
A small, ordinary moment that remembers happiness for you.
[Read]
(This landscape is living. New markers appear as new ground is walked.)
🌿 Field Notes — The Ground
Tools and reflections for steadying yourself.
Field Notes are not stories and not framework. They are small companion pieces — practical, embodied, and quietly human — meant for the moments when your nervous system is tired and your language runs thin.
→ Two I’m Fines
A simple practice for when “I’m fine” is a reflex instead of the truth.
→ Doctor Day Companion
A gentle, practical guide for navigating medical appointments when energy and clarity are limited.
→ Standing-in-Line Stabilizer
A grounding tool for public spaces, waiting rooms, and moments when the body feels unsteady.
→ Notes from the Threshold
Short reflections from the edges — the doorway moments between what was and what’s becoming.
A Note from Mary
Most of this work was written slowly — in kitchens, waiting rooms, quiet mornings, and the long, ordinary days that follow life’s big disruptions.
I don’t think of these pieces as answers.
I think of them as company.
If something here steadies you, keeps you a little less alone, or gives language to something you’ve been carrying — then the map is doing its job.
Legend
🧭 Compass Points — Orientation and questions
✨ Stories — Narrative places to stand (Open / Excerpt / Held)
🌿 Field Notes — Grounding tools and reflections
If you’re not sure where to begin, most people start with What Happened? — the first question in the Long Middle.
✨ Stories — The Places
Moments you can step inside from the Long Middle.
🚪 The Part of Illness No One Warns You About
On disappearing, belonging, and the quiet ache of being missed less.
Status: Open
→ Read
🚪 The Sounds That Stay
On memory, home, and what continues.
Status: Held for publication
→ About this piece
© 2026. All rights reserved.
Stories of the long middle — finding meaning, endurance, and quiet beauty.