Last week, I pushed through the discomfort of telling people I had a blog. It’s the worst part of having a blog, aside from writing it.
I got some really exciting and heartfelt responses. It reminded me why I bother. And it activated the part of me that is afraid to let you down. I think that’s called…caring? So, with my heart beating just a little harder, here I am, writing and caring.
In one of the responses, a friend asked for “words of wisdom for upending your life.” The life coach in me is tickled.
As it turned out, there was something very specific that I needed to hear. I was grateful to her for drawing it out.
Sometimes, I get stuck in ‘efficiency mode’: let’s only do what is necessary and avoid wasting time or money.
En route to the East coast, my partner Ike and I are currently in a little Colorado mountain town between two halves of a train ride he insisted we take. The train is twice as slow as driving. TWICE. This excursion and this whole mode of transportation were entirely inefficient, which I reminded him often.
But, it was essential.
It’s essential to take the long, windy road and leave room for life to surprise you. Those are the days where you get to the end, because you spent the afternoon relaxing in a huge, geothermally-heated public mineral pool and then stumbled into an unbelievably corny vaudeville dinner show, and you go, wow. That was weird. I am satiated.
You feel it in your body. You sleep well at night. You wake up, shrug your shoulders because it’s all a question mark, and get ready to do it again.
But all this mirth and togetherness and spending money has the part of me that thinks I’m being frivolous and neglecting my responsibilities very nervous.
This morning, I opened my emails and started to respond to things that had piled up, including my friend’s email.
I told her, “document how you are feeling along the way and reflect on where you were.”
Until deciding to move to LA in 2018, I was lonely, depressed, and made pretty much every decision based on my future and career. I’m still unwinding that program.
Soon after making a change, you focus on the next set of problems. You forget the ones you solved because they're not there anymore. Traveling with Ike, having fun and being together all of the time has solved my longest standing problem: loneliness. But if I don't take time to recognize and appreciate that, a week in, I’m back in efficiency mode, worrying I'm doing something wrong.
This is what it feels like to change, to stretch my capacity to enjoy myself. There’s tension between the old way and the new way, arguing in my brain as I walk my new walk.
It doesn’t feel perfect all the time. It isn’t supposed to. But it feels right.