Too much comfort will kill you people. The most comfortable you’re ever going to be is when you lie down in that big wooden box one day and get lowered into the ground where no one can disturb you. Now that's comfort.
Let's think for a moment on the characteristics of Life:
- Movement is a biggy. You stop moving, you're out of the game.
- Followed closely by action. Think about any book/movie/play you have recently gone to see. The good ones are action packed. No one cares about watching someone talking their head off, no. We want to see them physically struggle with something, otherwise it's not really that interesting.
- Breathing. Which causes your chest to move and is deepened and activated by action in the body.
My life before I went to the US was more predictable than time. There was nothing, and I do mean nothing that happened that was surprising, exciting or fun. My life had turned into a giant cushion of comfort and security and I was the main feature. And when I say main I mean big. Large. Spreading exponentially. I closely resembled the cushion towards the end.
I could feel it happening but thought nothing of it at first. We all know the drill: you move in with someone and instantly drop into homemaker mode. You nest. You spend time together at your new home because you're so goddamn proud of it. You think it's ok because you're not going to sit on that couch forever, it's just for a bit till you get over the nesting phase, which should happen at any moment except it doesn't and your life becomes smaller and smaller and smaller until you don't know how or when it happened and there's no going back.
At some point about a year down the line I knew it was happening and I tried to move things a bit. I started walking and jogging, but it didn't really help seeing as the high point of my day was what I was cooking for dinner. Seriously, some days I would go to buy food just so I could see other people. (If you are considering working from home I hope you have a live-in family or good friends that live real close by.) No matter what I did I couldn't jolt myself out of that place. I just couldn't shake it.
The only way I could bring myself back to life was to give it all up. It was a high price to pay, and I'm still paying it, but perhaps that's why I value it so much.
I don’t want to go back to Comfort Land. I want to stay active, stay surprised by the world around me. I want to remain an adventurer regardless of what happens. How do you do that when you live in one place and drive to work everyday the same way to do a job you’ve done for years and can do with your eyes closed? How do you do it without going completely bonkers?
I’m scared, dear reader. Before I left I was going to bed at 9pm and getting up around 6am. Then I would have a little snooze in the afternoon, after having read some of my book. I would listen to classical music a lot and spend enormous chunks of time on my own, and guess what I’ve spent most of my last week doing???
Please Universe, please. Don’t let me go back there. Help me to create a new life, to find a new challenge. Help me to better myself, to live life to the full, to grab it in both my hands and savour every single moment of it.
There is so much to see out there, the world is so big.
Only slightly scared out of my wits,
Alice
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