Sophie Lewis

About

People tend to write to me about four months in, which is roughly when the congratulations stop and the reality does not. The first stretch has its own momentum and its own audience. It is the quiet part afterwards that sends anybody looking for help. That timing is almost universal. A new chapter is well supported at the beginning and almost entirely unsupported in the middle, which is exactly inverted from what would actually be useful to someone living through it. We work in the middle. It is less interesting to everybody else and it is where the difficulty actually is. I have stopped being surprised by the four-month pattern because it holds so consistently. Nobody plans for the middle. If you are past the interesting part and into the hard part, get in touch. The middle is badly served by everybody, which is why I work there.