Limbo

View of Mackinac Island From St. Ignace Shore

I wander along the lakeside and wonder if this is loneliness.  If my aimlessness is mental illness.  If my lack of concern with time normal.  My inward-drawn discussions with myself strange.  My disconnect from the world permanent.  I have to believe being alone is making me stronger.  It's helping me prepare to be a part of something larger. Something I'll only find with patience.  Patience with myself and the seasons I have to pass through to be re-connected with a whole.

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.  Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be."  Anne Frank

Limestone Pattern on Stone Beach

In the past my religion, career and family gave me a purpose.  Retiring from teaching, seeing my daughters off on their own and losing my husband has stripped me of my day to day purpose. 

When I left Gaylord, after I sold my home, I lost my community at St. Mary's Cathedral.  I no longer cantor for St. Mary's and the church season doesn't propel me as it did before.  Religion wasn't just a spiritual belief alone.  It was a way of life, a belonging to a community of believers. The familiar faces and routines disappeared. So did my connection.  

Ending my teaching career ended the "carved-in-stone" school calendar I lived with for almost thirty-four years.  My life was directed by the seasons of the school year.  I became disconnected to a school community when I retired.  Commuting to Atlanta ended.  When I lived in Turkey I re-connected with this by teaching English at a private elementary school.  But, when this ended this summer I again became cut off from a lifestyle that defined who I was. 

My daughters growing up and moving on with their own lives, took away another calendar of events that seemed to have a life of its own.  The calendar was full every month.  Family life was the community I felt closest to. When they left home the family rituals we created left with them.  

With Harry's death our life together died with him.  Drinking this cup of coffee while I'm writing this post for the blog, is not the same as sharing the first cup of coffee in the morning with Harry.  Sharing thoughts, dreams and family with someone gave my life purpose.  

The parts of me that made me who I was, make me who I am.  I would never deny it.  I am a more soulful person because of life with my church community.  I am more of a humanist living with and nurturing young students in the classroom.  I have more of a capacity to love and be loved by having the honor to raise my girls.  I have a stronger conviction of what I need and want by sharing life and family with my husband.

J.R.R. Tolkien calls these the "threads of an old life".  I have to be gentle with myself as these threads continue to unravel and seem to fall apart.  I have to be patient not to rush and try to sew back a garment of life that resembles the old.  I have to be willing to carefully fold this garment and put it in a sacred place and not wear it pretending it still fits me.

"How do you pick up the thread of an old life?  How do you go on when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back.  There are some things that time cannot mend.  Some hours that go too deep that have taken hold."  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.

View under the Dock

I am choosing new threads.  I am creating a new pattern.  I am cutting out material that will work for my new garment.  A garment I will be proud to wear and call my own. 

It can't be more than it is, especially if I'm unaware of what is ahead.  The expectations I have for myself seem to fade away and relax.  In this painful but exciting process I have labored over, keeping my heart and soul open.  I know there is guidance.  What do I hope for?  Patience and love from those around me. Patience and love from myself.   

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really.  Double your rate of failure.  You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success.  But it isn't at all.  You can be discouraged by failure - or you can learn from it.  So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can.  Because, remember, that's where you will find success."  Thomas J. Watson

My daughter, Elizabeth, mentioned a word in anthropology that helps.  It gives me permission for this wavering time in my life.  Liminality.  I found a few things in Wikipedia to define this term.  I haven't found a lot of support in society for this transition time.  About as much support as I found for the grieving process.  In American culture it seems to be a "Get on with it"  or "Get over it" type of attitude.  I don't accept this and have found ways to protect myself from this.  I'm fortunate my daughters, friends and most of my family support me in this unraveling-re-threading time.  I do feel in "Limbo".  And I'm okay.

In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold"[1]) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.

Jungians have often seen the individuation process of self-realisation as taking place within a liminal space. 'Individuation begins with a withdrawal from normal modes of socialisation, epitomized by the breakdown of the persona...liminality'.[91] Thus 'what Turner's concept of social liminality does for status in society, Jung...does for the movement of the person through the life process of individuation'.[92] Individuation can be seen as a 'movement through liminal space and time, from disorientation to integration....What takes place in the dark phase of liminality is a process of breaking down...in the interest of "making whole" one's meaning, purpose and sense of relatedness once more'.[93] 

wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality

Little White Tiles embedded in a Rock on the Shore