197. Love in liminal space
A liminal space is this crossing-over space, the in-between. It’s the area between where you’ve come from and where you’re going. For example, an airport is a liminal space. So is an elevator, a car ride- it’s the transitional zone between Point A and Point B.
A summer holiday in a foreign country is a perfect example of a liminal space. You’re there for only a limited amount of time. The people you meet, the experiences you have- they’re fleeting, temporary. You’ll go home, and life will return to normal.
But romances set in these spaces feel so much more powerful. Everything feels heightened, more charged, because deep down, you know this is temporary. You feel it with an urgency- almost like it’s the last time you’ll ever feel this way.
My paraphrase from How to Cope With the Liminal Spaces in Our Lives by Brittany Chaffee:
The word "liminal" itself feels like it straddles a boundary. "Liminal", as a word, stands upright and symmetrical, neatly balanced. But when you say it out loud, it moves like a soft wave. carving space. In anthropology, liminality refers to that middle stage in a rite of passage, a time of disorientation and in-betweenness. It’s a space where the familiar dissolves, but the new hasn’t taken shape yet. That’s what makes it unsettling. Liminality isn’t just a place; it’s a feeling, like floating in a void, being stuck in a current you can’t quite fight, or even caught in a situation that you really can't react to.
If there were no constraints of time, it wouldn’t feel as intense or significant. It’s that limitation, that ticking clock, that creates the stakes.
Liminality feels like the stretch between Christmas and New Years. A lot of us have felt this quite recently as we peel away from the holiday daze and into the new year. I often feel that "liminal" feeling after coming back from a long trip. There’s this odd stretch of days when I’m neither fully rested nor fully reintegrated. It’s like being suspended between versions of myself: the one who left and the one who has to pick up where I left off. It’s uncomfortable and hard to name, but it’s real.
Physical liminal spaces are easier to pinpoint: an empty school hallway in the middle of summer, an airport terminal at 3 a.m., a deserted strip mall, a hotel lobby with its too-clean carpets and muted lighting. These are places of transition: where people pass through but don’t stay. They’re not destinations; they’re pauses, thresholds, voids. And because they resist definition, they often feel eerie, even a little threatening. They remind us of something we don’t like to confront: the unknown and uncertainty.
It’s the same thing with those summer flings when you’re young. You meet someone, it’s exciting, and then comes the moment where you have to part ways. That moment of departure gives the entire experience so much more weight. I think I tend to love in liminal spaces, too. There's something about the impermanence that pulls out an intensity in me that I don’t always show otherwise. I fell in love many many times, but I'm starting to think they don't stick because I'm forcing the entities in the liminal space to stay longer than they should. Maybe it’s the awareness that these moments are fleeting, that I’m more present because I know they can’t last. I pour more of myself into these connections, almost as if I’m trying to leave a lasting impression on the transitory, and it makes everything- every glance, every word, every touch- feel magnified. I’m not sure why, but the in-between seems to bring out the sharpest edges of my feelings.
Instagram post by @drawingolive | Website: Olivia de Recat
Liminal spaces aren’t always physical. Lately, I’ve realized I’m in a liminal phase of my life, and it feels just as ambiguous and strange. I’m in my mid to late twenties, not quite tethered to the wild freedom of my younger self, but not yet settled into the stability I imagine comes later. I’m navigating the space between friendships that once felt effortless and the more deliberate, delicate connections that come with age. I'm not a flightless bird when it comes to love and relationships, but I feel a bit unease. Emotionally, it’s like standing in an empty room, knowing a door will open but not sure when or where it will lead. At the same time, I'm looking forward to what comes next, but I’m hesitant about who I’m becoming. It’s a solitary, hovering kind of feeling, one that’s both disorienting and clarifying.
Liminality, in all its forms, asks us to sit with uncertainty. It’s uncomfortable, sure, but it’s also where change happens. And maybe that’s why it feels so unsettling. It pushes us to let go of what we know without guaranteeing what comes next.
~ sub(liminal) messaging,
<3 K