for as long as i can remember i've always felt very comforted by liminality - liminal spaces, liminal times. empty waiting rooms, schools past closing, vast parking lots void of any cars, deep and late into the night when you're the only person you can find on the streets. those places and times have always felt very calming, peaceful, personal, and private, even in the wide open.
that aspect of solitude feels so comforting, despite the fact that i am an extremely connective and communicative person. i feel a constant need to talk to everyone, all the time, but at the same time...
i feel drawn to that lonely simplicity.
sometimes i wonder if it calls to me because it's such a stark contrast to the life i live. if it's the appeal of the unknown; something that i rarely get to experience. or if it's sometimes i wonder if it calls to me because it feels like how i am, as a person.
sometimes i feel as if a person was a place. i feel more akin to a sidewalk, a waiting room, somewhere, someone, in-between. a place to stop, and rest, somewhere you are only between places, between people. someone that's more of a pit stop than a home. perhaps i am not even my own home.
i'm not sure what parts of myself and my life contribute to each other or dictate each other. i wonder if my nebulousness is imparted from the constant loss through my life, and if it's transformed into an unwillingness to stay. i feel an inherent need to always keep moving, to always keep doing something, to always be someone. i feel something like a shark, like if i stop moving, i'll die. sometimes, i already feel dead, when the stagnancy takes over and cements me in place.
i wonder how much my feeling of personal liminality coincides with my appeal to physical liminality, i wonder how much the loss i've endured has structured me to be ready to leave anything and everything at the drop of a dime. i am constantly ready for anyone i know to stop, and drop me, and move on, when they've had their fill. they've had their time to rest, they've recuperated, gotten what they needed, and have no reason to stay around any more. maybe i told them what they needed to hear, or they learned the lessons they were trying to internalize.
there's been very little consistency across my entire life. the few people that have stayed feel very much like me - we come together and commiserate about the same feelings. losing friends, moving on, finding new places and new people to engage with, but always feeling... outside. to feel more like an accoutrement than an actual part of the puzzle.
these people also cannot stop moving. the world is constantly bearing down and none of us can stand to be crushed, pinned, and immobilized by what we live through. in every little way we can think of, we are constantly trying to do better - for ourselves, for our friends, for our world.
we don't always fit together in the perfect ways. in fact, it often feels like we're all from completely different puzzles in the first place. lost a long time ago, and left to drift through the world with nowhere to fit quite right. maybe we can't stop moving because we have nowhere to go; nowhere to fit. so the next best place is to fit with each other.
it's strange, to have so much and so little to reflect on. i've always been in-between, the same as my favorite places. a stepping stone for others before they move on with their life.
maybe me and my friends are more like the rocks someone uses to cross a river. roaring, dangerous, and intimidating. they need help, and only have one way across.
there's a lot of foggy thoughts running through my head. i'm in a lot of pain. as usual.
how long can you wait in a waiting room before getting kicked out?