Why liminal?

I'm not sure where I learned the word "liminal," but it means a cusp, a threshold, an expectant between.

Liminal space is the 38th week of pregnancy, the wait in the hallway after your dissertation defense (while the committee decides your fate), the moment between buying the ring and proposing. Liminal space is exciting and sacred, and also bloody hard to bear at times.

I'm not pregnant, haven't bought any jewelry, and lived through that hallway moment (there is actually a funny story there I may tell you another time). It still feels liminal though: I am finished with my degree, but not graduated. I have interviewed for jobs, but not heard decisions. My relationships are in flux, And, on other fronts that are less about me, my parents are moving out of the last home I lived in with them, as I type this. I am taking advantage of the flexibility between my dissertation defense and graduation to get out of Dodge, and spend time with my darling boyfriend. He is excellent company, but this means I am disconnected from my life in College Town, Virginia, but we don't have a life together here either.

And, I am at the dawning realization stage when it comes to all those 'someday, when I graduate...' half-formed plans and dreams. Some of my cherished hopes will be realized, and some wont. I'm not ready to say out loud which doorways I suspect will open to fields of daisies and which to yawning chasms, but the dawning itself is hard, too.

**Drafted February 23, 2009, Elsewhere**