Do you have a bag I can borrow? A hat or plastic bag will do. Thank you. Here are some slips of paper with LIMINAL, AMBIVALENT, and ORANGE written upon them. Shake them up. Pull one out one by one. Thank you.
LIMINAL first? Ok, perfect. You didn't have Professor Thompson did you? She's the young funky Shakespeare professor who went to Harvard and relates every single play to the vagina. You would have liked her. Anyway, she used the word "liminal"quite frequently in lectures, as it means a transition period between eras. Between two very different kings, or two different ages of customs, or two planes of different thought.
Post-college life is a fucking liminal period for sure. It's that in-between the safety of the structure of college, where you can be as creative or drunk or half-assed or stellar or boring as you would like, and wherever else is Not College. The weird thing is, that Other Side can be anything. Who do we want to be? What is our Not College life going to be like? And it doesn't matter if you still party, or live in the same area, or hang out with the same people, because nonetheless things are different and it's this In-Between bridge of then and now which is so confusing and scary and thrilling and disappointing and awesome and dot dot dot.
You have no idea what I'm talking about, right? Sorry, I'm kind of jumbled. Can you pull out another word, please?
AMBIVALENT. As I learned in Girl, Interrupted, "Ambivalent" means wanting two opposing things so greatly that you're stuck in limbo of indecision. Being a 23-year old post-college girl is this word personified.
Take my relationship. If I was 21 or 20 my relationship would be perfect. Four orgasms in a row yesterday with in In-N-Out date because we're poor, then walking to the ocean at night with the moon and the waves and an acoustic Jack Johnson song playing from a car in the parking lot, and running together holding hands back to our car to kiss along the side of it. I want to be with him.
But I'm 23 and he's 29. And while I'm trying to figure my life out,I have a diploma up on my wall and he doesn't, I'm poor but with savings and he's under an avalanche of student debt, I want to try to get into publishing and have time to fail whereas he wants to get into the medical marijuana industry which means he'll probably still be in that industry when he's 35 and wanting to settle down. I don't want to be with someone like that long-term.
It's the present vs the future that us girls are starting to get weird about. Continue to date and have fun or begin to look for a partner? This is equally true for jobs. Crappy jobs are ok if you're in college. Crappy jobs are maybe ok if you just graduated. But if you're not careful that crappy job turns into a crappy career and then what? So you're stressed between wanting your dream job right fucking now or trying not to stress out because you're so young that you don't have to be stressed out.
The ambivalence of wanting to be an adult and a teenager, between careless and responsible, between marriage and dating, between perfection and wondering if it's too early for perfection, between the rest of your life and tomorrow. Hurry up and wait, right?
I'm still rambling, I'm sorry. On last paper slip in the bag. ORANGE.
This one's more about me. When I'm confident about something I feel a warm orange. It happens right after the panic. Like...well, for instance my body knows when I'm going to raise my hand in class before my brain does. My heart starts racing, my limbs get shaky, and I'm not sure if I want to run out of the room, throw up, or starting yelling out my comment then and there. But then I'll feel a sense of peace. Warm orange peace. And then I have the confidence to raise my hand.
My favorite daydreams have this tone. And Portland is starting to feel that way for me. I know that I'm moving there. And since my boyfriend has made it clear that he's not coming with me, I know that I'll be going alone--and in a way I'm starting to get excited about it. I've never moved to a place just for me. Never. All of my moves have been half-assed and not my control. I want this choice, Portland and singlehood (?) to be my choice. My confident choice. I want my heart to race, my limbs to shake, my stomach get queasy, and then I want a warm nice bright feeling of peace. I'll be ready then.
I know that most of us are stuck in either limbo or ambivalence, or fear, or debt, or happiness, and I know that all of us are in a liminal period of our lives. And I guess I just want this blog entry to say, hey, me too.
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