This essay is part of the Between Chapters project, inspired by the book. What chapters are you between? How did you get from one chapter to another? Share your story here.
What Chapter Are You…
Leaving:
Proving I could build, manage, lead, contribute, and keep all the plates spinning.
In:
Listening more closely to my own voice and a richer interior life.
Entering:
Becoming the author of my own narrative.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the chapters of life. Not the obvious ones we list in bios or holiday cards, but the quieter chapters. The ones that begin before we fully recognize them. The ones that ask us to become someone different, to reinvent ourselves before we feel ready.
For most of my adult life, my energy moved outward. I was raising children, building a career, serving on boards, working with donors, supporting organizations, and helping other people’s visions come to life. I knew how to solve the problem, write the letter, make the call, organize the room, and keep the plates spinning at work and at home alike.
For decades, as the chief fundraiser at a major arts organization in Palm Beach, I lived a highly visible life. That chapter was joyful. Sometimes exhausting, too. It gave me purpose, confidence, community, and a deep education in people.
But it was also a chapter of constant responsiveness. Of operating on all cylinders. Of being “on” every waking moment and, yes, sometimes even in my dreams.
I can look back on that chapter — the chapter of proving — with great pride. Proving I could handle it. Proving I could contribute. Proving I could build something, support something, fix something, make something happen. Proving, perhaps most of all, that I was needed.
The chapter I have recently entered is the chapter of authorship. By authorship, I don’t only mean writing books, although that is very much part of it. What resonates deeply now is becoming the author of my own narrative, rather than the manager of everyone else’s. I am asking different questions: What do I think? What have I learned? What can I see now that I was too busy to see before?
Writing has become the doorway into this chapter. My first novel was published while I was still in the middle of the chaotic plate-spinning years. Even my fabulous book launch was a whirlwind — wonderful, yes, but also bittersweet because I barely had time to enjoy the moment. There were meetings the next morning, events to lead, and strategic plans to write, all unrelated to my novel. And, of course, there was a book tour to squeeze in on top of work.
This next novel feels different. I am writing with a perspective I did not have when I was younger. I understand more now about ambition, disappointment, marriage, motherhood, philanthropy, reinvention, status, money, and the distance between appearances and reality. That perspective feels like a gift. So does needing less permission to carve out time to think and to hear myself think.
The decision that brought me to this new chapter was not dramatic. I did not blow up my life or make a grand announcement. I simply began paying attention. To what interested me. To what bothered me. To what I kept returning to on the page. To what really mattered: family, love, time, truth, writing, and most of all, listening to my own voice.
And then I had to find the courage to take that attention seriously. That part was the trickiest. And yet, that may be the most important thing about moving between chapters. We often know before we admit we know. We feel the nagging undercurrent before we can explain it. Something in us starts whispering that the old rhythm no longer fits, even if the old rhythm still looks perfectly fine from the outside. Even if the accolades continue. Even if other people still recognize and applaud us for the roles we are beginning to outgrow.
It takes courage to listen. It takes courage to leave a chapter that made sense to other people and enter one that may only make partial sense to you, at least at first.
Do I miss earlier chapters? Of course. I miss the chapter when my children were young and the house was loud. I miss the messy, funny, exhausting fullness of it: the backpacks, the dinners, the schedules, the small hands, the ordinary chaos you don’t realize is precious until it has rearranged itself into memory. And I miss the great work I did as a professional for the public good. The work that kept me focused, grounded, engaged, and busy all the time.
But I don’t want to go backward. I am most excited for the chapter ahead because it feels honest. The ambition is still there, but it has changed shape. It is less frantic and more focused. Less about being seen and more about seeing clearly.
That is where I am now: curious, grateful, a little impatient, and more willing than ever to be true to myself. That is what writing gives me: a space that is mine, and mine alone, in this vast world.
My advice to anyone changing chapters, or trying to survive a difficult one, is to pay attention to what keeps calling you. Not what impresses other people. Not what looks good on paper. Not what you have always done simply because you know how to do it — and can do it well. Pay attention to the thing that makes you feel awake and alive again. And then have the courage to believe what you notice.
Also, don’t mistake a quieter chapter for a lesser one. Some chapters do not arrive with fireworks. They arrive as a sentence, a whisper, a blank page, a strange new freedom. They arrive when you realize the life you built still matters, but it no longer has to be the whole story.
I have left the chapter of proving. I am entering the chapter of meaning. And this new chapter, I hope, will show up on the page: stronger, wiser, bolder, and fully mine.
Diane Bergner is the author of the novel Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club. Follow her on Substack, Diane Bergner, and Instagram @dianebergner.
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“Don’t mistake a quieter chapter for a lesser one.” So wise! What a beautifully written piece.
“Pay attention”. Love this essay, Diane. So many wise sentences🙏