The last six months of my life have been very difficult ones. It’s been almost six months to the day since I was abruptly made single, homeless, and a total wreck in one fell swoop. I felt as if I was going to lose my job at any moment. My savings didn’t last long. I like to think that now I am none of those, with a warm and welcoming home, and too many other things keeping me too busy to even consider self-loathing. I’ve embraced brunch, karaoke, happy hours, wandering about the city, shopping, cooking, dancing, community theater, summertime, meeting new people, trying strange diets, travel, my family, whimsy, and trashy romance novels. I’ve embraced awful pop music to find that I really, really like the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus. I’m writing and looking into grad school all thanks to having had my very comfortable rug pulled out from underneath me.

I’ve come to the grin-inducing conclusion that it was all for the best. My ex is currently one of my two best friends in the world, I have reconnected with my family, my lust for travel, my politics and my religion. I have made new friends who I can’t imagine my world without today.

Really, it’s those people I have to thank. My contemplation today comes from asking myself how that happened. How did I end up a bruncher? How did I come to love ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’? When did I turn into the person who takes off for a weekend roadtrip at the last minute? It is very clearly and 100% because of my friends and family.

I’m not the only one going through such upheaval. One of my best friends nearly saw her goal of the last year go down in flames thanks to a huffy director. Another finished her job search and a relationship while starting the South Beach diet, all in about one week. We’re all prescribed stress medicines and none of us get enough sleep, we are all too far from our families and none of us have any idea what we want out of jobs or schooling. We’re all floating, it feels like.

I find that the further into this Limbo, this Quarter Life Crisis, that I get, it is this small group of people whom I turn to. My mother tells me there’s a light at the end of the tunnel; my friends help me see the funny side of it all or we buy each other a drink and toast to just knowing how it feels.

In a time in our lives when it is so easy to feel alone, we know that we are not.

In a time in my life when my boyfriend is too far away to hold me (long distance relationships, what can you do?), my friends are waiting with a hug.

In a time when it might seem easiest to just let go of what we’ve worked for so long for (the job, the family, the love, the big life – whatever all of our goals may be), we hold on for each other a little bit longer.

It’s an intense thing to realize – that we’re all in Limbo and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. To see it staring you in the face one day when you feel like you’ve just had too much. Is it Purgatory if we’re not alone? Is what surely feels like the worst time we’ll have really all that bad if we’ve got loved ones to share it with? I thought that my life ended six months ago, what I was too blind to see was what all that was just starting.

Best Regards,
Limbo