Hold on Loosely and Then Let Go

Floating in that Liminal Space

Hygge, Margot Potter for Margot Potter Studios Copyright 2024

Hello, Friend

Welcome to that liminal space between the waning and waxing years. Somehow, this year, it feels particularly Limbo-esque. Not limbo the festive dance with a stick, Limbo the mythical place where unbaptized babies and the ‘good heathens’ born before the Christ are suspended for eternity (which has also come to refer to whatever it is that lies between time and space.) Some might call that dark matter others might call that the DMV, and either way they’d have a point.

I suppose if I had to pick a religious category, heathen would suffice. Am I a good heathen, though? Hard to say.

I try.

Wow, okay, c’mon Madge, focus! Welcome to that strange, suspended end of year in between time. Time being an illusion, this is just a feeling many people share as we attempt to impose meaning on the movements of the planet in relation to the sun and moon. The concept of time is helpful as it gives us a shared sense of reality and the ability to create plans and schedules and events.

Good Lordy Louise. This is not what I planned to say, but my fingers are doing the bulk of the work here and my brain is merely supplying the words to translate what my fingers are attempting to express. I’m feeling…unsettled. There is no more glitter coated, candy stuffed, champagne fizzled denial left to soothe me. The new year and all that it portends is skulking around the edges like Jack Nicholson in The Shining preparing to crash through the door and yell, “Here’s 2025!”

Erk.

Am I the only one who is not looking forward to 2025? I’m usually ready to race into the new year with arms wide open, but not this year. My word of the year last year was ‘wonder’ and I’m seeking a word that might encapsulate the complexity of my current feelings.

Trepidahopetenaciresolve? Hmm…needs work.

Add to this my post-holiday dip, not the flavorful kind into which one might scrape a ridged potato chip, oh no, the kind of feeling one gets when the elevator descends, and your stomach stays a few feet above you before crashing back into place. That dip comes when my daughter gets back to her adult life in another state, and I start to feel the existential ache of her absence.

This is when I have to re-mind myself to hold on loosely and (unlike the song suggests) then let go. Our holiday was a bit of a mixed bag with our elder dog recovering from major surgery and providing the soundtrack of a constant heartbreaking whine in the background of the festivities combined with hearty laughter, tasty treats, minor mishaps, a few absurd shenanigans, a smattering of missed opportunities, and a decided deficit of snuggles or cuddles (I am the lone snuggler of this family) which makes today’s time alone feel alone-ier.

Sure, I could have used the word lonelier, but alone-ier felt more apropos.

Mr. Potter is back to his erratic work schedule (one that defies any attempt to impose order) and I’m back to my regularly scheduled dog lady on a farm in the middle of nowhere attempting relevance and connection with like-minded humans by writing questionable essays for her Substack.

I’m floating in that liminal space before the new year brings whatever it might bring regardless of my feelings or my efforts to defer it.

“Jack be limbo, Jack be quick
Jack go under limbo stick
All around the limbo clock
Hey, let's do the limbo rock

Limbo lower now
Limbo lower now
How low can you go?”

-Limbo Rock, Chubby Checker

That, Sir Chubby, is the quintessential rhetorical question, isn’t it?

In the interim, there will be leftover chocolate cheesecake (yum), post-holiday tears (boo), cuddles and snuggles with dogs under the softest blankets (yay), vague thoughts of tax preparation (yuck), and a judicious smattering of trepidahopetenaciresolve (blerk).

I’ll get back to you on the word.