a reflection: liminality

on the ache, (dis)comfort, and power of not-quite-knowing

For anyone who knows the ache of the in-between. Who hovers before the yes, the no, the next step. Who feels the pull - but stops just short of reaching.

This is about desire and fear. The fear of naming what we want. The fear of naming what we feel. The fear of being seen. The fear of being known. The fear of having to choose. The fear of being wrong.

If you’ve lived in this liminal space - this is for you.

---

I’ve been wondering: what does it mean to live in liminality?

It’s the space between knowing and not knowing. Between wanting and having.
Between leaving and arriving. Between what I feel and what I say. Between what I want and what I admit wanting. Between who I am and who I think I should be.
Between impulse and restraint. Between knowing who I am, who I was, and who I’m becoming.

Liminality doesn’t always feel the same. It can show up quietly, abruptly, or seep in slowly. Some days, it drifts beneath the surface - easy to miss, but impossible to ignore once you notice. Other days, it’s felt. Restless. You know something’s off, but you can’t always explain what. Like you’re waiting for something, but not sure what it is.

Sometimes, being in-between feels like safety. You don’t have to name it, act on it, or take a step. You can avoid the risk. Other times, it feels like pressure - like something pressing on your chest or sitting in your stomach.

Do you notice how it takes up space? How it moves through your body?

It’s a shapeshifter. Unpredictable. It lingers. It holds you. It demands your attention.

Over time, the waiting room stops being a place you pass through - it becomes a place you live. You know its sounds, its silences. You’ve learned how to wait without expecting. You pace. You sit. You stare at the same closed doors.

Eventually, you forget what it was like to move freely. And maybe you’ve grown so used to it, it stopped feeling strange. Because discomfort, when it’s familiar, can start to feel like home.

Have you made a home in the in-between? Have you stopped asking how long you’ll be here?

Sometimes I wonder if I have, too. Because staying here - in the in-between - means I never have to risk wanting out loud. But what would it mean to name what I long for? To say it out loud. To stop avoiding. What might happen? Would it move me forward? Would it unravel me? Part of me believes that if I don’t speak it - or act on it - I won’t have to find out what it might change. What it might ask of me. What it might undo. As long as I stay in the waiting room, I can hold on to possibility - without risking what happens next.

Audre Lorde once wrote: “And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.” Maybe that’s what I’m circling here - not just the fear of wanting, but the fear of being seen wanting. The fear that naming a longing makes it real. Touchable. Risky.

Sometimes it’s easier to stay in the ache than to risk what might happen if it’s spoken - or acted on. The body often knows before the mind allows permission. The wanting gathers behind the ribs, presses into the throat. A nervous kind of pulse. Liminality isn’t just emotional - it’s physical. The body holds what the mind isn’t ready to claim.

Brené Brown writes: “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” Maybe that’s the threshold - not action, not certainty, but naming. To give shape to the ache. To let the desire surface. Maybe we begin not by leaping forward, but by pausing long enough to tell the truth - the part that wants to be seen.

Still, I wonder: What grows here, in this space of pause? What do we risk when we move toward what we long for? Does it lose its power - or reveal what was always there? Is there a threshold between longing and truth?

And so I stay - in the in-between. I keep choosing this space (or maybe it chooses me). I’m still not sure if that’s courage or fear. But something stirs beneath the stillness.Maybe the first step is learning to name what we feel and want. So maybe it starts with naming. Maybe it starts here.

What if being seen isn’t the risk - but the way forward?