0.6 A liminal state

Or will he
Make a mistake, jump the wrong way, jump right
Into the hound’s mouth? As I write this down
He runs still fresh, with all his chances before him.
Foxhunt, Ted Hughes

Liminal spaces in the physical sense are those places that “occupy the spaces between”. “Liminal” comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. There are so many liminal aspects of my life right now. Work is waiting for retirement. Love and marriage waiting for resolution. So many decisions drift at the threshold.

The experience with Ellen has knocked me – again. As well as the connection, her dark hair, friendly eyes and obvious warmth were a spell easy to fall under. She is my type. And her vulnerability – I have a strong protective reflex. I’d have been there for her had things progressed.

I remember the words of another woman from the site, Hackney Girl:

I think you have unrealistic expectations…

Probably, I always have. Life should be full and we are duty bound to live it as well as we can.

I feel pathetic for leaning on the idea of Ellen so heavily. We message finally and I send her the blog post. I had said I wasn’t going to publish it but I don’t know who she is ITRW. All I know is her first name and the vague area she lives. No-one reading it is ever going to make the connection. It feels safe to do and I need its rawness in the air. Time for another scab to form.

Ellen messages to say she has had a few dates with someone and is going to ‘give it a go’. Why do I find people who connect but won’t? I have a backlog of love to give. It will not be a burden. But I can’t make someone love me or even, it seems, take a coffee with me.

But she knows who I am, my full name and can find me if she ever needs me. I’d come running.

Another tough weekend (for which I have only myself to blame). How do I move over the threshold? Being on my own is not healthy (as we’ve seen). I’m looking forward to work tomorrow, the office, PowerPoints, risk that isn’t really risk. Not my jeopardy.

I feel reckless. Old tropes enter my mind – but I don’t know anyone in the Blue anymore and besides, what good would it do? That’s an old habit, short lived and died easily. It fed a need though and I feel the waves of its echoes as I drive around London, restless, eyes pricking with tears.

I want to see a friend, talk to someone but I’m tapped out of deep and meaningful chats for a while. I go home, write some more. Is it healthy to keep writing here? I don’t know. Only I can solve this situation. The soundtrack doesn’t help. I listened to the whole album, on repeat whilst messaging Ellen. It’s Pavlovian.

Am I being unrealistic? I take Hackney Girl’s point. I’d only been on the site a few weeks (shouldn’t even have been there). And was I expecting to connect in the first few days? Hackney Girl is in her 4th year! She doesn’t realise the 15 years of waiting that I’ve been through, the celibacy, the loneliness and abandonment – physical and emotional.

Ellen had talked about the ‘attachment’ generated by the messaging and the gaps we fill-in in our head. Fantasies of what the other person will be like and that it will heal us. We are in deep limerent territory here. I’m almost certain I had taken Ellen back to some of that in our messages. I had booked a First Class ticket, chauffeur to the airport – everything.

So I sit on the platform of my liminal space, waiting for arrivals or departures. Everything feels delayed and I’m impatient. The backlog is like a dam and I can’t hold on much longer.

I’m not sure what will happen first but as I write, all my chances are before me.