Special Edition Fall 2022: XOXO Leah- Navigating Liminal Spaces in Experiences

Advice on handling transitions in experiences 

By Leah Keith

I still remember that feeling I got right before starting middle school. In middle school, you have multiple different teachers throughout the day, not just one. Plus, you have different classrooms for each class. As a little tweenager, I was petrified. This was so different from elementary school!! How do they expect me to find my classes every day? How do I keep track of all my teachers? How will I keep up with school work? Am I cut out to survive middle school??? Well, long story short, I overcame my fears and had a mediocre middle school experience. Then, I transitioned into high school and again, had a pretty mediocre experience. I definitely learned a lot about myself, but I did not peak during this time of my life, that’s for sure.

Then, in the summer of 2021, my whole life changed. Well, not entirely, but as I prepared for my freshman year of college, I began to say goodbye to my childhood home and many of the friends I made growing up. Although I knew I could always visit my home and my friends, leaving this sense of security felt life-shattering. As my world started to change, I found myself navigating this new liminal space, a space between high school and college, a space I felt so uncomfortable in. 

Throughout the early stages of life, your surroundings constantly change. From elementary school to middle school to high school, to college, you are never in the same place for more than three to six years at a time. After those years, more or less, you are expected to change locations and start a new chapter in life. Of course, many people stay in the same house or the same area during childhood, but that does not change the fact that you constantly go through transitions in your environment during this time. In the past couple of years, I made the transition from high school to college, and that felt like the scariest change of my entire life. I am only 19 years old, so I am sure I will experience many more transitions as I grow older, ones that will feel a lot more nerve-wracking and open-ended.

The only constant of life is change, and transition will continue to occur no matter what stage of life you are in. For many of us college students, the next biggest transition in our lives will be graduating college and entering into a post-graduate life. Whether that means you will start looking at grad school options or go straight into the workforce, your life will be quite different after graduation. To better understand how St. Kate’s students are feeling about this upcoming change, I talked to friend and graduating senior, Sylvia Gladstein ‘22 (she/her, English, Women’s Studies minor). 

When talking about her impending graduation, Gladstein describes how she’s currently feeling about the transition. “Graduating is definitely a mix of excitement and fear, of happiness and sadness,” Gladstein says. “Being a student and having a job at the same time often feels like two jobs, so I’m kind of excited to just have one. But at the same time, being a student comes with so many privileges that I know I’m gonna lose once that label goes away.”

The student label often feels so ingrained in our identity as a person, especially since we’ve been a student for more years than not, for almost our entire lives. Gladstein discusses this idea of identity: “Being a part of a group, whether that be a group of friends in high school or a student body in college or whatever it might be, that can often cloud your identity, and those things get so tied up in who you are. I am excited to have a little bit of space from that institutionalized identity. I look forward to letting go of that student label and forming my own identity that I’ve been working towards.” 

With all of the emotions Gladstein is feeling about graduation, she also reflects on the idealized experience of higher education and post-grad life. “The fairytale of a college education is that you’ll go to high school, you’ll get into a great college, you’ll find a job that you’ll love, you’ll stay at for like 60 years, and everything will be perfect,” Gladstein says. “I feel like so much of that is tied to a strict, linear path, and I think that although that’s a cute fairytale, it’s healthier for everybody if we allow for wiggle room.”

As some final words of advice, Gladstein says, “I would say just allow yourself to jump into it and know that even in a new phase where you might be losing your footing, it’s okay for things to be difficult, and it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to give yourself the space to recognize when you need to take a step back, and you don’t need to do everything perfectly all the time. Don’t push yourself to jump into things right away if you need more time to process transitions.” 

Throughout life, you will constantly go through difficult transitions. I hope you all find comfort throughout these changes despite their challenges. Wishing you all the best of luck …

xoxo Leah