Notes from a Liminal Space

I’ve always imagined liminal spaces as eerily quiet. Backrooms of sorts. White walls, long hallways, endless corridors, and an overwhelming sense that you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to stay. You’re not supposed to know which turn to take, and even if you did, you wouldn’t know where it would lead.

And I guess, in a way, that’s accurate.

I thought the last year or so of my life was the liminal space. The reality is that it’s been the last few weeks.

My life is changing yet again, and I thought I was ready.

Sometimes I feel like this change is long overdue. Like I’ve known my whole life I was meant to see something else, do something else, and be greater in different places. And other times, I wish it wasn’t happening at all.

I always thought that I would loathe coming home from college. That I would feel trapped, that I’d have to report my every move, that returning to the same four walls I spent so much of my life in would feel like a regression.

But my house never felt that way once I left it, and much to my surprise, it didn’t feel that way when I came back.

I thought the time between graduating and moving out would be my liminal space. That strange and uncomfortable period between the person I had been and the person I was supposed to become. I imagined myself waiting for my life to begin again, counting the days until I could pack my bags and go.

Instead, somewhere along the way, the place I thought would be temporary became one I wasn’t quite ready to leave.

And now, it turns out that the liminal space wasn’t that period at all.

It’s the three weeks I’ve been given to pack my bags and move to a new city.

Three weeks to prepare for a life I have wanted for so long. Three weeks to figure out how to fit everything I own into a couple of suitcases. Three weeks to find five hundred square feet to call my own and make peace with the fact that the life I’ve grown so comfortable in is about to look entirely different.

And the funny thing is that this wasn’t really the plan.

I always knew I’d be going somewhere. I just didn’t think it would be like this.

I didn’t think I’d be living by myself. I didn’t think I’d be moving at the beginning of winter, a season I love from a distance but dread when I’m in it. I didn’t think I’d be standing in my childhood bedroom, looking at the photographs plastered across my walls, trying to decide which memories to take with me and which to leave behind.

I knew it would happen. Just not like this.

Not so fast.

I thought I’d have more time.

More time to sit in my room and appreciate that it was mine. More time to make plans with people without having to think about when I’d see them again.

And sure, it’s October. I’ll be home for the holidays, but it won’t be the same.

There’s something strange about mourning a place that isn’t going anywhere.

My room will still be there. The shoes I won’t bring with me will collect dust in the closet. The walls will be the same. The house will still be a home.

the wall!!

But I know that when I come back, something will have shifted.

I’ll be visiting a life I used to live rather than returning to the one I’m living.

And I don’t think I’m prepared for how much that stings.

Because I am ecstatic.

I’m getting to do something I’ve dreamed about. Going to a city I love, starting a new job I’ve prayed for, building a life that only existed in my imagination.

And I am heartbroken.

Not because I don’t want what’s coming, but because I didn’t realize how much I would want to hold on to what I already have.

The other night, I walked into a room full of almost all the people I love most.

And in what feels like a particularly fitting detail, I wasn’t wearing my contacts.

I couldn’t see a thing.

Just blurred faces, familiar silhouettes, and a room full of people whose presence I could recognize even when I couldn’t make out their features.

But I knew they were there.

They’d shown up for me. To celebrate me, to wish me luck as I prepared to leave the place they had made so difficult to say goodbye to.

I think there’s something equally cruel and beautiful about being surrounded by so much love at the exact moment you’re preparing to leave it.

I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I was looking around at all these people, thinking about how lucky I was to have them there, and how strange it was that something so wonderful could make leaving feel that much harder. That I could spend one moment imagining everything that’s waiting for me and the next wishing I could make time stand still.

That I could pet my dog a little longer.

I feel like I’m being pulled in every direction. Like I’m standing in the middle of that liminal space, knowing I have to keep walking but wanting desperately to turn around just one more time.

Maybe that’s what makes this particular liminal space so strange.

I always thought the in-between was somewhere empty and unfamiliar.

But mine is lush.

It is full of familiar voices, with a bedroom I’ve outgrown in some ways and can’t imagine leaving in others. It is overflowing with everything I once thought I couldn’t possibly return to.

Sometimes you don’t leave because you’re unhappy. Sometimes you don’t leave because you’ve outgrown everything.

Sometimes you leave because something is waiting for you, even when something else is begging you to stay.

I do not fear starting over. I never have.

I think I’m just in disbelief at how shocked I am by my own grief.

Because I’ll be back in a month. And I’ll be back the month after that. And this city will always be my home.

Nothing is disappearing. The people I love aren’t going anywhere. The room will still be there, the photographs will still be on the walls, and the life I’ve built here won’t suddenly cease to exist just because I’m no longer living in the middle of it.

I think I’m coming to terms with adulthood. With the relationships I’ve made, the life I’ve built, and the strange realization that moving forward doesn’t necessarily mean leaving everything behind.

Maybe what I’m grieving isn’t the loss of any of it, but the fact that it can never exist quite the same way again.

I didn’t think I’d feel this way. I didn’t think I’d be so reluctant to leave a place I once thought I couldn’t wait to escape.

And yet, here I am, standing in the middle of a liminal space that is anything but empty.

I thought I’d have more time.

But the reality is that there is never enough.

There’s something wild and warm and wonderful waiting for me down the next corridor. I know that. And I want it, more than I can explain.

I just understand what I’m leaving behind.

And thank God I do.

Thank God I have something worth grieving.

Because there’s something really, really beautiful about realizing just how much love you’ve managed to build in a place you never expected to stay.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe I don’t need to know which turn to take or exactly where the next corridor will lead.

For once, the hardest part of moving forward isn’t the uncertainty of what’s ahead.

It’s knowing how wonderful everything that’s behind me has been, too.

❤️