“…headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…”
I recently came across this line from a Dr Seuss book and realised it was describing something I recognised. Not the physical liminal spaces people often picture like airports and corridors, but an internal liminal space, where life continues outwardly while something inward remains suspended between what was and what might come next.
Nothing in my life had collapsed, and nothing obvious was missing. Responsibilities were being met, routines maintained, plans continuing as expected. From the outside, everything functioned. Internally, however, there was the sense that things were shifting beneath the surface – as if a quiet process were unfolding, like a bone healing inside a cast.
Sometimes these periods arrive without a clear turning point. Priorities evolve, identities loosen, something that once felt stable no longer sits the same way – like returning to a childhood home and finding it subtly altered, not because anything has visibly changed, but because you have. Rooms seem smaller than memory allowed, proportions quietly off. Nothing is obviously wrong; it simply feels subtly unsettling, as if familiarity had become slightly distorted.
Modern life offers little patience for such ambiguity. We are encouraged to keep moving, to define goals, to resolve uncertainty quickly, and as a result we often find ourselves operating on autopilot, continuing forward because stopping feels intolerable. It is entirely possible to function – to meet obligations, perform competently, maintain appearances – while internally feeling suspended, not fully rooted in where one is or certain of what comes next.
And yet what appears from the outside as inactivity may in fact be necessary recalibration, much like the brain strengthening some connections while pruning others, quietly refining itself for what comes next.
I began to see why people might remain in these spaces longer than expected. The in-between offers a form of protection and security – a low-risk position, a way of hedging against uncertainty. Nothing definitive has been risked, no irreversible step taken. To move forward requires relinquishing something familiar – roles, expectations, ways of understanding oneself that once provided stability.
As spring returns and daylight slowly lengthens, it offers a quiet reminder that there is often a lag between the shift itself and our awareness of it. What seemed dormant starts to stir. The restless waiting of winter gives way to a gradual awakening – a movement out of suspension toward possibility, preparing us for what comes next. Like Persephone below the surface, trusting that spring would find her again.
Perhaps the task is not to escape the in-between nor to remain there indefinitely but to recognise when the quiet work of reorganisation has reached a point where momentum becomes possible. The signs may be small, subtle signals rather than dramatic turning points: a return of curiosity, a gentle restlessness, the sense that what once felt overwhelming now feels manageable. It is less a decision than a recognition – a realisation that the Waiting Place was never meant to be permanent, wisely captured in the line from Dr. Seuss, “No! That’s not for you!”
Looking back, I began to see that this period had not been an obstacle but a necessary interval. It was less a detour than an intermezzo between acts, a pause in which something was quietly taking shape before it could unfold. Such stretches demand patience, even when they feel like boredom or restlessness, because what appears like stillness may in fact be gathering momentum out of sight. Perhaps many of us pass through these phases more often than we realise, lingering in a place between what has ended and what has yet to begin. They may feel like delays or disruptions, yet they can also be preparatory, creating the conditions for the next movement of a life. For me, the Waiting Place was not somewhere I was meant to remain, only somewhere I needed to pause long enough to understand why I was there and to move forward – and to remember all the places I will indeed go.
