Dealing with transitions

I’m in a very liminal space on a big project. 

Liminality is the idea that you are passing from one thing into another. You know that feeling – like the last week of a job where you have turned in notice. Your brain is already on the new job, but your body is still in the old one. It’s a time of transition. 

Apparently, the word liminal comes from the same root that the word lintel does – the bar that sits over the door in a brick wall, that keeps the doorway open and prevents the brick from crashing down on your head. 

Huh. 

Words are cool. Even so, I still hate them. Not words. I love words. 

I mean transitions. I hate them. 

Hate. Them. 

I have attention deficit disorder – ADHD is the official diagnosis. I’ve written about it quite a bit. 

And people who have brains like mine need routine. (That’s not the same thing as saying we are good at making routines – that is another type of brain. But we need them.)

Transitions always kill your routines. Take away your hard-fought coping mechanisms and accommodations. And you have to make new ones. 

But there is this period of time in a transition- that liminal time, when you are still in the old world, but your brain is in the new one, where you are just a mess. 

And that is where I am right now. A big mess. 

Luckily, this has happened to me enough that I have a liminal space routine. 

• Make a big pot of coffee. 
• Get out your favorite pen and a yellow legal pad. (Must be yellow – brains are weird)
• Make a list. A long list. 
• Don’t censor. It all goes on the list. Everything pending, everything you want to do, everything you need to do. No categories, no priorities. 
• Then get up and go for a walk.

I’ve learned it really doesn’t matter what you do when you come back from the walk – the act of list making seems to be where the magic is. Even so, I find that I get clarity on what I ought to be doing, and even have energy for it after this exercise. 

But your mileage may vary. Because brains are weird.