Thoughts From a Life in Limbo

Mattoon offers her thoughts from a life in limbo. When she first encountered limbo while reading Dante's fictional Divine Comedy, the locale did not seem like such an awful place. Limbo is the first circle of hell, where the Italian writer decided to put every great thinker who he could not bear to depict in eternal anguish. Limbo has often seeped its way into young adult musings and culture, although not in a hellish 14th-century style. Rather, teens often see themselves as caught between dependence on their parents or older adults and a desire to have worldly adventures of their own. As it has with most affairs in the American society, COVID-19 has flipped this youthful limbo from an endearing trope to a haunting reality for most American teens. Hopefully, they will all come out of the other side as a generation that will use its challenges to change the world.