The Liminal Space of Sunday
Running a finger along the ridge of the window sill, I watch the light die at exactly 4:21 PM. It is Sunday, that strange, liminal space where the weekend has already expired but the work week hasn’t yet begun to breathe. I tried to go to bed at 9:01 PM last night, hoping to bypass the restlessness, but sleep is a fickle landlord. Now, I’m left with the hum of the refrigerator. It sounds like a 501-pound beast breathing in the corner of the kitchen, rhythmic and demanding.
The clinician told me on Friday that we would ‘pick this up next week,’ which in their mind meant Tuesday at 10:11 AM. On a grid, that’s just a two-day jump. In the lived reality of a quiet house, it is a 4261-minute trek across a desert with no landmarks.
Time is not a universal constant, regardless of what the physicists claim. There is administrative time… and then there is emotional time. Administrative time treats the hour between 2:01 PM and 3:01 PM on a Wednesday the same as the hour between 2:01 AM and 3:01 AM on a Sunday. But anyone who has ever sat in the dark with their own thoughts knows that the latter is at least 11 times denser.
The Theft of Continuity
Jamie R.J. knows all about the danger of gaps. He monitors 111 cameras across a sprawling department store, and he once told me that the most effective thefts don’t happen because of a lack of security, but because of a lack of continuity. If a guard blinks or a shift change takes 11 seconds too long, that’s where the loss occurs.
This 51-foot gap is exactly what it feels like to be told your next appointment is in 71 hours.
“You are visible for 51 minutes of a therapy session, and then you are expected to navigate the next 101 hours of shadows with nothing but a coping card and a reminder to ‘be kind to yourself.'”
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(Wait, I actually lost that coping card under the seat of my car 21 days ago, and I haven’t had the heart to look for it. It felt too much like a paper band-aid on a 101-stitch wound.)
The weight of the void is measured in minutes, not days.
The Flaw in the Architecture
There is a fundamental contradiction in how we design care. We tell people that recovery is a 24-hour-a-day process, yet the systems of support are built on a 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday logic. This isn’t a criticism of the individual practitioners… but rather a critique of the architecture of the interval. We have commodified the hour but ignored the transition.
Data Point: 1 Error
Bridge Failure
The system saw a ‘no-show’-a data point of 1 error in an otherwise clean spreadsheet. I saw a collapse of the bridge I had been trying to build. We need to acknowledge that for many, the ‘treatment’ is the easy part. The ‘between’ is where the real work, and the real terror, resides.
This is where organizations like Eating Disorder Solutions attempt to bridge the divide, recognizing that the struggle doesn’t take the weekend off even if the office does.
Direct Line of Sight
The scheduled appointment (The Exit).
The Mirror Gap
The necessary ‘see around the corner’ view we lack.
The Half-Life of Strength
I’ve often wondered if we could measure the ‘half-life’ of a therapy session. How long does the strength gained in those 51 minutes actually last? For some, it might be 21 hours. For others, it’s 11 minutes.
The time until the next appointment; the internal critic has had uninterrupted stage time.
There’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes from being told help is ‘just’ a few days away. The word ‘just’ is a 1-syllable lie. But if you are drowning 11 feet from the shore, the fact that the shore is ‘just’ 11 feet away doesn’t make the water any shallower.
The Absurdity of Manageable Distance
We see this in the way we talk about waitlists or scheduling backlogs. We say, ‘It’s only a 21-day wait,’ as if those 21 days are a static block of time. In reality, those are 21 days of waking up, 21 days of eating-or not eating-and 21 nights of trying to go to bed early just to make the clock move faster.
Self-Correction: The Math Problem
Sometimes I think my obsession with these intervals is just a way to avoid the actual work. It’s easier to complain about the 71-hour wait than it is to sit with the feelings that make the wait so unbearable. I acknowledge this mistake. I am prone to intellectualizing my distress until it becomes a math problem. If I can prove the scheduling logic is flawed, then my struggle isn’t a failure of my will; it’s a failure of the system. It’s likely both. It’s probably 51% system and 49% soul.
“The goal is not to eliminate the gap, but to make the gap visible.”
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We wait until the person is back in the room to address the theft of their peace that happened 41 hours ago. We are always investigating a cold case.
The Cage and The Music
As the light finally disappears, leaving the room a dull shade of grey, I realize that the gap is where the soul either hardens or breaks. It’s the space between the notes that makes the music, but it’s also the space between the bars that makes the cage.
Conclusion: Presence Required
We need a new way to measure time-not in hours, but in the intensity of the presence required to survive them. I’ll be there on Tuesday at 10:11 AM. I’ll sit in the 1 chair provided and give the 1-word answers that hide the 111 thoughts I had while staring at this window. And when the session ends at 11:01 AM, I will begin the next count, watching the clock for the first of the many 21-minute blocks that will eventually, hopefully, lead me back to the light.