First days feel huge and last days feel sudden. The middle days are the ones you’re in, so be in them.

Attention clusters at the edges. The first day of anything gets photographed and the last one gets mourned, while the two hundred days between them pass with nobody paying much notice. Those middle days are where the friendships actually got made and where almost everything real happened. They just did not come with an announcement.

Pick an ordinary day this week and treat it as though it were the last one, without the sadness. Look at the room, the people, the route you take without thinking. Ten seconds of looking is enough, and the middle is not a waiting area between two important dates.