{"id":2245,"date":"2010-04-30T11:25:14","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T11:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html"},"modified":"2010-04-30T11:25:14","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T11:25:14","slug":"dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Mistake the Middle for the End"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"books.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/71\/import\/imgs\/books.jpg\" width=\"321\" height=\"223\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span>I realize the more professional thing to do would be to keep this to myself, but, since I&#8217;ve always vowed to be as truthful as possible in my blog, here it is &#8230;<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been in the process of mourning an end to my book writing career.<br \/>\nIn the publishing business, you are only as good as your last book, and, well, for some reasons that I couldn&#8217;t control, my last book was a stillborn, dead at birth. It got lost in the shuffle from editorial to publicity to sales, and resulted in really bad numbers &#8230; the kind that put an end to a book writing career.<br \/>\nI always knew that you were at the mercy of numbers, but I forgot that you can&#8217;t control things, situations, that work against you. And sometimes you just have to go on living with the circumstances.<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s the end. God, I&#8217;ve reached the end,&#8221; I cried to a good friend yesterday, trying to brainstorm about where to go next, what other careers I could do: teaching high school religion, publicity for the Naval Academy, driving the water taxi downtown.<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s the middle,&#8221; she said back to me. &#8220;Don&#8217;t mistake the end for the middle. You don&#8217;t know what God has in store for you.&#8221;<br \/>\nI suppose she&#8217;s right. I mean, the last time I said, &#8220;This is the end,&#8221; I was hospitalized, listening to a guy bang his head against the wall as I cried to my mentor over the phone. I had absolutely no reason to believe that my future involved anything promising. I mean, I wasn&#8217;t able to drive myself at that point. How would I get to an office? Becoming a mental health advocate through writing and speaking? No one could have convinced me of that.<br \/>\nAnd now, as I mourn the death of what has been an important arm of my career, I must not lose sight that sometimes there are surprising beginnings in what we deem ends, and that we don&#8217;t always understand God&#8217;s plans as they unfold.<br \/>\nI can&#8217;t thank my readers enough for all the affirmations you&#8217;ve sent lately. I have printed all of them and stuck them in my self-esteem file, because, as you well know, when a door slams shut in your face, it is so very tempting to abandon everything that involves putting yourself out there.<br \/>\nSo thank you.<\/p>\n<p><i>*&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beyondblue1\">Click here to <b>subscribe to Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/thereseborchard\">click here to follow Therese on <b>Twitter<\/b><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/beyond_blue\">click here to join <b>Group Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a>, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I realize the more professional thing to do would be to keep this to myself, but, since I&#8217;ve always vowed to be as truthful as possible in my blog, here it is &#8230; I&#8217;ve been in the process of mourning an end to my book writing career. In the publishing business, you are only as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Don&#039;t Mistake the Middle for the End - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don&#039;t Mistake the Middle for the End - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I realize the more professional thing to do would be to keep this to myself, but, since I&#8217;ve always vowed to be as truthful as possible in my blog, here it is &#8230; I&#8217;ve been in the process of mourning an end to my book writing career. In the publishing business, you are only as&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-30T11:25:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/books.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Don't Mistake the Middle for the End - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Don't Mistake the Middle for the End - Beyond Blue","og_description":"I realize the more professional thing to do would be to keep this to myself, but, since I&#8217;ve always vowed to be as truthful as possible in my blog, here it is &#8230; I&#8217;ve been in the process of mourning an end to my book writing career. In the publishing business, you are only as&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2010-04-30T11:25:14+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/books.jpg"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html","name":"Don't Mistake the Middle for the End - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/books.jpg","datePublished":"2010-04-30T11:25:14+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-30T11:25:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/books.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/books.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/04\/dont-mistake-the-middle-for-th.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Don&#8217;t Mistake the Middle for the End"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. 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Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression &amp; Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}