The Bardo of Becoming (Sidpa Bardo)

In Tibetan Buddhism, there is something called the bardo of becoming.

It is the space between one thing ending and another beginning.

Not quite here.

Not quite there.

Not who you were anymore, but not yet who you are becoming.

I think I know this place well.

Leaving

The last few years have felt like leaving.

Leaving identities.

Leaving dreams.

Leaving versions of myself that I genuinely loved.

Not because they were wrong.

Not because they failed.

But because somewhere inside me, I knew I was standing outside doors that were never going to open for me.

For a long time, I kept knocking anyway.

I knocked by showing up.

I knocked by being useful.

I knocked by building things.

I knocked by staying longer than I should have.

I knocked by believing that if I loved enough, gave enough, contributed enough, eventually the answer would become yes.

Eventually I would feel chosen.

Eventually I would feel like I belonged.

But some doors do not open because they were never meant for you.

And there is a particular kind of grief that comes from realizing that.

Love is not the same thing as alignment

Because the truth is, I loved those things.

I loved those people.

I loved those versions of my life.

Leaving was never about not loving them enough.

If anything, I stayed because I loved them so much.

But love is not the same thing as alignment.

And sometimes life asks us to leave behind things that are beautiful but no longer true.

I think about all the times I believed that if I just waited a little longer, tried a little harder, became a little easier, a little better, a little more patient, maybe I would finally get let in.

Maybe this time I would be chosen back.

Maybe this time I would belong.

But there comes a moment when you realize you are spending your whole life knocking on a door while another path is quietly waiting behind you.

Turning around

Turning around feels like failure at first.

It feels like giving up.

It feels like abandoning something you love.

But maybe it is actually trust.

Trusting yourself enough to believe that your life is not on the other side of a locked door.

Trusting that belonging is not something you have to convince people to give you.

Trusting that the places and people meant for you will not require you to stand outside proving your worth.

There is grief in that realization.

There is grief in accepting that some things were chapters and not destinations.

There is grief in admitting that no amount of knocking would have changed the answer.

But there is freedom too.

Because for the first time, you stop spending your energy trying to be invited somewhere that cannot receive you.

You stop knocking.

You start walking.

And that, I think, is the bardo of becoming.

The in-between

You are no longer who you were.

The old world no longer fits.

The new world has not appeared yet.

So you live in the in-between.

You question yourself.

You wonder if you made a mistake.

You wonder if maybe you should go back and knock one more time.

But deep down you already know.

The answer behind that door had always been the same.

Silence.

And maybe that silence was not rejection.

Maybe it was Turiya.

The stillness beneath the striving.

The awareness beneath the becoming.

The part of you that existed before you were chosen and will remain even if you are not.

Not empty.

Not indifferent.

Not absence.

Just the quiet knowing underneath all the noise:

Not here.

Keep going.

Somewhere between lives

So here I am.

Somewhere between lives.

Somewhere between identities.

Somewhere between the woman I was and the woman I am becoming.

Learning that sometimes courage does not look like holding on.

Sometimes courage looks like leaving with love.

Walking away without bitterness.

Thanking the door for what it taught you.

And trusting that somewhere ahead there are doors that will not need to be forced open.

Doors that open because they recognize you.

Doors that open because you belong there.

Doors that were built for your arrival.

And until then, there is the bardo.

And beneath the bardo, there is Turiya.

One is the space of becoming.

The other is the part of you that never needed to become anything at all.