Sandwiched
Thoughts on being stuck between fear and hope, accompanied by actual sandwich recipes.
This week’s episode of Feeling TV is here! Come on over to my place and let me show you around! This was so fun to share the stories of the pieces I have collected over the years — it finally feels like home!
My intention for this article was to share sandwich recipes, but I ended up exploring the feeling of being sandwiched.
(I did make some really good sandwiches, too.)
Here’s what this post includes:
Thoughts on being sandwiched
Journal Prompts
Recipes for:
A Victorian London Fog
My Magic Vanilla Matcha
Beefy Boy Sandwich
Summer Dill Sandwich
Miso Potato Salad
A special phone wallpaper about hope, just for you :)
The more I pressed bread and sliced tomatoes, the more I thought about that feeling of being stuck, squished. I thought of the early 2000s classic “Dare You to Move” by Switchfoot. Where Jon Foreman rings out, “The tension is here: between who you are and who you could be, between how it is and how it should be.”
That feeling of being sandwiched between your fear and your potential. Your past and your future.
The fear starts as a small seed, a little whisper. A project that went wrong reaffirms it. Then one unkind person. Then one lost dream. And suddenly, it becomes like ivy — so thick and full that it’s hard to see the rest of the garden.
I don’t think I realized how much fear had a grip on me for the last several years. You don’t notice the ivy has grown so dense until one day it’s cut down.
We moved to New York City in September, not knowing anyone and unsure how we would make it work. We were quickly met with a bleak, cold winter. I remember one night, looking out through dark windows at glowing city lights in the distance, cold rain hitting the ground like glass.
We asked ourselves if we liked it here, wondering what it really meant to uproot everything and land somewhere so drastically different than where we were comfortable.
I said New York is like the ocean.
I grew up in Florida, my summers spent on white sand and turquoise water. I would swim out beyond where the small Gulf waves crashed and face the horizon line, floating. I remember feeling so incredibly tiny. I vanished in the vastness of it. It’s a sacred place. The background noise of anxious thoughts and fears seems to slip away. The expanse of blue blankets the chaos.
I never expected that New York would be an ocean to me. It’s huge, and I’m so small. And somehow, with the horns honking, dirty streets, and constant noise, I find the same feeling I do gazing at the horizon line: peace.
I can see past a lot of the ivy now. The paralysis of fear feels less powerful than my desire to create a colorful future.
And yet, many days I wake up to the same ugly sandwich.
What does it mean to be stuck between the belief that I’m not capable of accomplishing my dreams and still having vivid, bold, beautiful ones?
I’ve been in that sandwich for a long time. While some fears have subsided, I find myself in a vulnerable position for the fear to return. What’s that position? I’ve put myself in it. It’s hope. It’s working on something I care about. It’s trying really hard.