Was it always going to be like this? I wondered. This roller coaster of doubt and elation? Was this the price and the reward for not committing to some larger, more established idea of life?
– Glynnis MacNicol, No One Tells You This
It’s another gray, dreary day in Durham. While the temperature isn’t as low as it has been, Gia still bundles six-month-old Isa into his winter suit before we begin our morning walk to Branches Community School. As she pushes the stroller and smiles at her baby, I realize it’s been well over a month since Gia and I have had a one-on-one conversation. She asks me how I’m doing.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “It’s just that time of year.”
Gia lifts her eyes from the stroller and looks at me. “Yeah, I know you’re in a liminal space right now.”
Chronic sleep deprivation (triggered by a baby who rarely sleeps through the night) occasionally causes Gia’s brilliant brain to short-circuit. In conversations these days, she sometimes finds it difficult to recall the right word. But at this moment, her lexicon is on point.
Liminal. Yes.
I often describe this time of year as “the doldrums of winter” but I think “liminal space” is a much more appropriate phrase. After our walk, I look up the definition.
The word "liminal" comes from the Latin word “limen,” which means threshold. To be in a liminal space means to be on the precipice of something new but not quite there yet. You can be in a liminal space physically, emotionally, or metaphorically. Being in a liminal space can be incredibly uncomfortable for most people.
January and February often feel this way for me. All the anticipation, excitement, and action-packed adventures of the last year have faded. My calendar for this upcoming year contains, at this point, a lot of blank space.
The most common question I receive while I’m home during these months is “so when is your next expedition? Where are you off to next?”
The answer: I have no idea.
Even though I don’t have expeditions officially scheduled yet, I still have a myriad of things on my to-do list: film and edit a video about cancer research at UNC. Plan the workshop I will host at Science Talk ’23. Organize an outreach event for the North Carolina Science Festival. Edit a proposal for an ocean science podcast. Compile tax documents for my accountant. Update my website. Write this blog post.
I also send lots of emails to inquire about potential expedition work. One ocean science organization says they haven’t finalized their schedule yet, but they’ll get back to me next month. Another one says they’ll be in touch in April. I email a chief scientist about an outreach proposal, but she doesn’t respond for over a week. That expedition isn’t happening until 2025 anyway.
Staring at a computer screen and waiting for people to email me back makes me want to slam my head against a wall. Every day, I make it a point to close my laptop, pull on my puffy coat, and go for a long walk. Even with the frigid temperatures and gray skies that characterize so many North Carolina winter days, it still feels good to be outside.
A block from my house, a meandering wooded trail leads to the Eno River. It’s a far cry from the ocean but gazing at the trickling water helps to turn down the volume of my turbulent thoughts. I take a deep breath and savor the simple joys of a walk in the woods. Fresh mud on my boots. Cold air in my lungs.
Breathe in. Don’t think too hard about the future. Breathe out. Be here now.
Books offer much-needed mental refuge as well. I always enjoy memoirs about people with non-traditional lives but diving into that genre is particularly helpful during this time. Through a random Google search, I find a book tilted No One Tells you This by Glynnis Macnicoll, a female journalist who never married, never had children, and never had any regrets about her life.
I highlight the following passages:
I felt dazed, but also grateful… to have a life that involved such extremes and be able to inhabit both ends, painful and exhausting as parts of it currently were.
But how did one commit to the idea of not committing? Or was this it? A rolling interrogation of myself. Living in a constant state of reinvention.
During this time of the year, I have to pay close attention to how and where my thoughts wander. Over the holidays in November and December, my dear parents started urging me to buy a house. Now I’m looking at real estate in Durham and comparing those numbers to the figures in my bank account. The idea of being a homeowner and paying a mortgage is daunting to say the least and feels increasingly ludicrous the more I think about it.
In her book Find a Way, Diana Nyad writes, “we shouldn’t contemplate the deeper issues of our lives when sick or exhausted.”
I am neither sick nor exhausted, but my mental state is a bit more tenuous right now. The simple act of looking at real estate quickly devolves into a black hole of existential questions.
Should I really put hundreds of thousands of dollars into a house?
What other things could I do with all that money?
I’m not going to have children! I travel all the time! Why do I need to own a big house?
Will my friends and family think I’m a failure if I never own a home?
Does it matter what other people think?
Shouldn’t I prioritize my own happiness and fulfillment, even if it looks different from everyone else?
Okay, now I’m exhausted.
The big question of when and how I might become a homeowner can shift to the back burner. Now is not the time to ponder that.
I also spend a lot less time on social media. I don’t feel the need to explain this choice (shouldn’t we all spend less time on social media?) but I think MacNicol sums it up pretty well:
We’re always drawn to the clearest articulation of what we think we lack. I knew better than to allow myself to be thrown into a temper tantrum over Instagram. It just took effort. I had to lean on my knowledge of the real lives of the people in the photos, which were just as complicated and flawed as my own.
I remind myself, over and over again, that I have been in this space before and it is ephemeral. The doubts, insecurities, and imposter syndrome that feel like clenched fists in my gut will eventually release. This “uncomfortable” time and space is the price of admission I pay to have a life and career that includes immense freedom and possibility.
As I attempt to practice mindfulness and prevent my thoughts from spiraling, I receive a message from a colleague — a phenomenally talented filmmaker who, like me, specializes in ocean work.
Yo. I’m struggling to book up this year. Do you know of any organizations/ships/crews that are looking to staff up while you’re unavailable?
I reply immediately. The struggle is real.
We exchange several more messages, and I assure my colleague I will keep them posted on potential projects and pass their name along to different organizations.
I know they will find work. I know I will too.
In the meantime, we have to embrace the liminal space.