I knew this day was coming

I have been anticipating it for months.

Not dreading it exactly, but aware that it was looming.

Now it’s here…

For the first time in 31 years (not counting the years in which I was enrolled myself), school officially starts today… without me being a part of it.

Since shortly after DBS surgery, I have walked every morning soon after waking; 135 days straight of at least a mile, sometimes two. I have grown to look forward to my morning walk every day, but particularly on Tuesdays, the day that Simon Sinek drops his latest podcast. It never seems to fail to influence me in some significant way; today was no exception. Today’s podcast featured Arthur Brooks, billed as an author but way more than that, having filled many roles as he has moved through life, starting as a professional French horn player at 19 through to his current gig teaching a class on happiness at Harvard Business School.

Turns out there is a precise word for where I am in life: liminal, from the Latin “limen” for “threshold.” Or, in Dave Matthew’s Band (DMB) parlance “The Space Between.” At the crossroads of what was and what will be, on the verge of something having finished something else. A new beginning at some other beginning’s end.

I was at a gathering of a friend’s friends over the weekend (an Introvert’s waking nightmare; the vast majority of people I did not know). While I was literally hugging the wall trying to morph into it I wondered how I would introduce myself if approached. Yes, there’s always the comeback remark about how unusual my name is, and question of its origin to keep the conversation moving, but how would I answer the inevitable follow up question “What do you do?”

I know that people aren’t seeking what I actually do when they ask that question, or genuinely even care—after all, it is just a soft lob to initiate conversation. “Hi I’m Piet and I’m in a liminal state right now” doesn’t exactly scream life of the party… But neither does my real answer, which is wake up in the morning feeling grateful to be alive as I run my hands over the contours of the electrodes implanted in my subthalamic nucleus that gave me another chance at life. That question is commonly understood as asking what people do for work. Now that PD forced my hand into an early/disability retirement, I no longer have a stock answer. Nor have I auditioned any. “I’m retired” reveals nothing about what I used to do, what is particular to my life and experience, nor does it convey that it really wasn’t a choice. “I’m a retired educator” doesn’t let on that I was a school counselor—the vast majority of the time at the high school level—with a deep knowledge and appreciation of adolescent development. Perhaps I could lead with “accidental gardener,” which at least has an interesting story. Should I talk instead about what I’m thinking of doing with my time now that my life isn’t ruled by somebody else’s schedule? “Should we talk about the weather?

But the truth is I’m no longer going to have a single, simple answer. As I eventually fill in my post DBS/post career dance card, there will be many answers to that question. As it should be. Humans are much more than what they do for a paycheck.

Let’s get liminal