The Liminal Current

October 21, 2025

I recently had dinner with a former co-worker—

someone who knew me in that in-between space,

when I was trying to convince myself I was fine.

She told me my former colleagues still speak highly of me—

that the experienced advisors say I was excellent at what I did.

And I smiled, because I know that’s true.

Competence was never the problem.

We talked easily, the way you can with people

who’ve seen both your striving and your unraveling.

At one point, between bites and laughter,

I told her—

leaving was the best decision I could have made for myself.

The words felt calm, unforced.

No defense. No edge.

Just truth resting where it belongs.

For a long time, I tried to make it work—

shrinking to fit the shape of something that no longer fit me,

talking myself into gratitude,

into patience,

into staying.

But the body always knows first.

Mine had grown heavy, slow,

its pulse mismatched to the rhythm of me.

Leaving wasn’t rebellion.

It was remembering.

A quiet return to the sound of my own voice,

the warmth of my own presence.

Now the air feels wider.

Ideas come back like old friends.

Peace arrives unannounced,

slipping between the hours of a day that finally feels like mine.

Freedom, I’m learning,

isn’t only about what you walk into.

It’s also about what you finally give yourself permission

to walk away from.

The last five years have been transformational—

hard, honest, and humbling.

My identity stripped to bone,

my will to keep going forged in the wreckage.

For so long, I survived by planning, achieving,

building meaning from the ashes.

But not anymore.

Now, I’m not forcing anything.

There are still a few projects to finish,

chapters to close for my long-term future—

but outside of those,

I’m resting in the current of the unknown,

trusting the quiet pull of something larger

to show me where to go next and when it is time to leap.

I am not lost.

I’m being led.