Monday Morning Clarity: The Space Between Who I Was and Who I'm Becoming

It's just after 9 AM on a Monday in LA, and I'm sitting by the window in the campus coffee shop, watching students rush to their first classes while I have a blessed hour before mine starts. There's something different about the energy today – maybe it's the slightly cooler September air or maybe it's something shifting in me.

Yesterday's reflection about finding my rhythm has been sitting with me all night. I literally woke up thinking about it (which never happens – I usually wake up thinking about whether I have time to hit snooze again).

The thing is, I'm starting to notice this space between reactions – this tiny moment where I get to choose how to respond instead of just being swept away by whatever emotion hits first. It happened again this morning when I got an email from that textile artist saying she needs to push our meeting back a week. Old Mandy would have immediately catastrophized this into a complete disaster for my timeline. But instead, I felt the panic rise and then... there was this pause. This tiny but significant space where I could actually choose what to do with that feeling.

I ended up using the subway ride to campus to reorganize my project timeline, and honestly? The delay might actually work better with my other deadlines. Who even am I right now?

Professor Rivera talks about "the space between stimulus and response" in design thinking, but I always thought that was just some abstract concept for class discussions. Turns out it's a real thing that happens in actual life when you're paying attention.

It's weird to feel yourself changing in real-time. Like, I'm still the same Mandy who spent 20 minutes this morning trying on different outfits and who definitely needs to stop checking her ex's Instagram stories (I KNOW, I'm working on it). But there's also this emerging version who can recognize patterns, find opportunities in obstacles, and apparently handle schedule changes without a complete meltdown.

I keep thinking about something my mom told me last week when I called her freaking out about my collection: "Growth isn't about becoming someone new – it's about becoming more authentically yourself." At the time I thought it was just one of those mom-isms, but now I'm wondering if she's onto something.

Maybe all this evolution isn't about transforming into some completely different person, but about finding the clearer version of who I've always been underneath all the noise.

Anyway, class in 15 minutes and I haven't finished my coffee. Here's to Monday clarity and the space between who I was and who I'm becoming.