About a year ago, my husband was offered a job over the phone. A job that would take us overseas, a job that prompted me to a level of logistical mania I’d never before experienced.

And here we are, same as it ever was. Except with a bit more stress, from all the damn waiting.

Limbo is… stupid. No other word for it. It requires an unnatural level of patience, for one thing, and an even more unnatural level of acceptance. If I followed Zen teachings, I might find this not at all unnatural. But I don’t. I think and wonder about the future. I imagine. I plan. I look forward. Limbo is stupid.

Limbo has, however, enhanced my powers of observation and reception. I have little to share about myself for now, as our lives–my husband’s, our children’s, mine–remain largely unchanged. So I am freer than ever, to watch and listen. I’ve become better at being a wife. I’ve become better at being a friend. I’ve become better at being a mother.

A great deal has happened over the past year. Marriages are growing ever stronger, or are in trouble, or are ending. Family and friends are healing or recovering. Babies are growing or joining our world. It’s the time of year where we realize all there is to be thankful for, and acknowledge it. I am thankful for stupid, stupid Limbo. Limbo has quieted me. It has pushed me to look outward in order to see things change… around me, if not for me. It has allowed me to stabilize all things close to me and immediate, if not further from me and in the near future.

It has forced me to (ugh) ‘live in the moment.’

Limbo is stupid. Limbo is… Good.