In a British Romanticism class in college, one essay topic was on the "liminal" feelings within the work on Mary Wollstonecraft. Ever since I wrote that essay, liminal has become one of my favorite words. It's defined loosely as an acute feeling of emotion, kind of like being suspended in time just FEELING, not really doing...

From Wikipedia--"he liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition, during which your normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed, opening the way to something new."

Ever since I returned from Greece, I feel as if I have been suspended in a liminal state of various intensities. I feel like I have become a huge mass of different emotions--performing my job with the same tenacity, but the weeks are blurring into months. I only get clarity when I'm talking about what I'm thinking about-with friends, with family.

It's so strange. Before I went to Greece, I had hardened to a point that I wasn't crying over things that I would have the year before. I didn't even cry at Ellyn's wedding, when I had anticipated a waterwork affair. I had even wrapped Kleenex around my bouquet. I was acutely aware that I SHOULD be crying, that I WANTED to cry, but no tears came out.

This facade lasted until Lisa and I were lost in Rome with our luggage, trying to find an elusive hotel in rush-hour traffic with people being exceptionally rude and not letting us onto public busses. It was one of th first times that I had cried in months. Since that moment, I feel I have become a tangled blob of emotions.

I'm crying over a lot more now. John Mayer's new CD--Grey's Anatomy episodes--even the death of Steve Irwin.

It's a little ridiculous, but I feel as if I'm feeling again.

And I like it.