On Changing Careers and Comfort

I just want to be comfortable.
I have uttered these words out loud many times in my life. Usually in response to a conversation about money. Or, when purchasing my first grown-up pillow-top bed. I have uttered these words internally as well. In relationships, close friendships, in my career.
I have uttered other words also, words that were used to disguise this sentence. But they meant it all the same. Words like, ‘I’m not going to fight with you about this’ or ‘I just can’t do this anymore’ or ‘I don’t think I’m ready for that responsibility’. Many times what I was trying to say was. Please don’t take me out of my comfort zone without my permission. Do not drag me out of the safe and into the unknown.
Other times it was my gut telling me no. But I have started to learn the difference. To feel it.
But here’s what else I have learned. Most of the things that are worth the world lie outside of my safe territory.  It is when living in a state of the uncomfortable that change occurs. It is out there where creativity resides and passion dwells. Where fear still lurks, but out in the open.
To become a writer, for me, was terrifying. To have to be open and honest, otherwise what is the point. To place a small square of yourself on paper for the judgment of others. To use narrative as an escape and a sanctuary. To let people see the thoughts that flicker from an intangible place. An unknown place. Possibly my heart. To let people into my heart.
It took a few hard knocks for me to escape my comfort zone. I still run back to that tree lined boundary some days. Fight my way through the foliage until I find my favorite grassy clearing in the sun to hide from revolution. Carefully construct my crown of daisies and retreat into the soft clover. But I know full well where my real world lies today. If I stand on my tip toes and peer over the tree tops, I can see it waiting for me. I can smell the ocean and hear the sea birds. There is no financial security out there, no safe love, no certainty.
You will meet many versions of yourself on that border, if you so choose to approach it. My favourite, is a well-dressed and pulled together version of myself. Not a hair out of place. As she sees me step my toe across the fringe, she approaches me with long, determined strides. She is my voice of rational. Do you really want to do this? If you do there is no going back. What if you get it wrong. What if it doesn’t work out. What if you fail. Questions that aren’t meant to be answered, they are intended to scare me away from my own life.
I admire her; she is so pulled together all of the time. But I am no longer her; I’m exhausted just thinking about being her. So I smile and just keep walking…hair out of place and a notebook full of thoughts under my arm.
Much love XX