The Space Between (Narrated)

Recorded live at the DamesTalk Open Mic, July 22, 2025.

Earlier this year, Great Dames—a women’s leadership organization I’ve been part of since its founding—launched DamesTalk, a platform created to help women find and amplify their voices.

We’ve built and shared tools. We’ve hosted workshops on the power of storytelling. We’ve created space for reflection, connection, and truth-telling. And now, we’re witnessing the impact of women—and the allies who support them—speaking their truths, bravely and in their own words.

This week, we held our first-ever DamesTalk Open Mic Night. It was filled with courage, vulnerability, and the kind of resonance that stays with you. It won’t be our last.

I’d written this piece ahead of the event—just in case. I wasn’t sure I’d share it. But when the time came, I was asked to read. And in doing so, I found myself standing more fully in my own space between.

This piece was my offering that night. I’m sharing it here too, in case you’re in that in-between—waiting, loosening, becoming.

If this resonates, I invite you to explore Great Dames—now in its 16th year—and DamesTalk, where stories like yours are welcome, heard, and honored.

The Space Between

There’s a breath
I didn’t know I was holding.
For most of my life.

I thought tension was normal.
That care meant contortion.
That love was something you proved
by what you were willing to give up.

But lately—
in the space between
who I was
and who I’m becoming—
I’ve learned to stop holding my breath.

Not all at once.
But in slow,
almost accidental sighs.
Like loosening the grip on a rope
you’ve held so long,
you forgot it was cutting you.

Some versions of me were survival.
Some, performance.
Some were just a child
trying to earn
what was already mine.

I’m not angry about that anymore.
Well—
not always.

There’s grace in the middle.
And that’s where I stop disappearing.

These days—
I move slower.
Ask questions
that don’t beg to be answered.
Say “no”
without explaining.
Say “yes”
without permission.

Let silence be
what it is.

Because in the space between
what I clung to
and what I can’t quite see yet—
I’ve found myself
not needing to be
so easily explained.

There’s more of me now.

And less I need to prove.