Twilight Seasons
I discovered a new word today - "liminal". It comes from the Latin word "līmen", which means "a threshold", and refers to the space in between a starting and ending point, like the threshold of a door.
In the 2004 blockbuster movie, The Terminal, the main character finds himself trapped in a liminal space. He can neither legally return to his home country nor enter the United States, so he must remain in the airport terminal indefinitely until he finds a way out. Anyone who has relocated to another country, can relate. I moved to the United States from my homeland of South Africa when I was in my early twenties. Now, twenty years later, I am part of American society, and yet I will never be as fully assimilated as someone who was born here. Neither do I fully belong in my native land, like I did before I left.
Being in a transitional state is something that we all confront in our lives. Times when we have left behind the familiarity of what once defined us . Our old identity dissolves, but we don't yet feel like we fully belong to our new way of being either. When I go through a major transition in my life, I often feel vulnerable, disoriented, uncertain and overwhelmed. My tendency is to want to shut down.
I have to remind myself to remain open to the experience. When I do that, I make space for reflection; evaluating what has come before, and what may come next. It is not easy, it feels downright scary at times, but new perspectives and possibilities often lie waiting in the midst of the process.
Food for thought as we look ahead to the spring, knowing that winter is slowly but surely waning.
