The Divorce Between Comfort and Adventure

I’ve been battling the same big anxiety feeling for as long as I can remember now.  It takes a lot of different forms, but I think I’ve finally identified it all as basically the same big anxiety.  I’ve also identified, after a recent uncomfortable encounter with my mother, that while she may have unintentionally transplanted a seed from her own anxiety plant, I own the entirety of the giant tree I’ve cultivated and nurtured over the years.  During my formative years and on into my current stage of adulthood, she has successfully transmuted her own hyper-sensitive anxieties and need for an abstract illusion of control onto me.  I’ve carried that with me and cultivated my own hyper-sensitive need for an illusion of control.  That manifests in numerous ways.  One of those ways is, like my mother, a need to acquire and hold onto things.  In my mother’s case, those things feel like things that connect her to the people she loves.  In my case, those things feel like things designed for my comfort.  

If I have a favorite lotion or soap, I will buy three or four of them just to have them always on hand.  Those have been the most difficult things for me to let go of during this journey, especially feeling as though they are all, even in unopened packages, destined for the dump since no charity will accept liquids or personal care items.  That fact makes the “loss,” feel more wasteful, which is an anxiety heightener for me, needless wastefulness.  The other thing that has been the most difficult for me to part with are not electronics, but electronic enhancers, if you will.  I don’t need multiple laptops, but I need multiple chargers.  In my house, I liked three charging cables because I could leave one plugged into my bedroom socket near my bed, one plugged into the living room near my desk for when I was working, and one packed into my work bag for when I had in-person jobs.  In the clear-out, I even found an extra one still packed in a box full of cables and cords for just in case one broke.  Likewise, I had backups to my backups for everything that ever needed connecting for my work setup.  And though I’ve made the decision to quit court reporting, somehow I am still having difficulty letting go of the fourth or fifth extra connection.  I clung to an extra set of wired earbuds, even though one was broken and only played in one ear.  Two sets of wireless earbuds and a completely unopened and unvetted pair of wireless headphones.  Because at home, I liked one set of the earbuds on my bedstand to easily use for meditating first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  I liked the other set of earbuds on the entry table so I knew exactly where they were when I wanted to take a walk and listen to music or an audiobook.  I haven’t even tried out the headphones, so I have no idea whether I like them or not.  But I have all three, even as I’m battling myself for space.  Toothbrushes, toothpastes, and various lotions and soaps feel so completely silly to cling to, and yet here we are.  I am still fighting myself to let go my iron grip on all of them and, on the other side of it, fighting my frustration as I sift through all of the things and things and things trying to find the one thing I truly need, usually finally giving up and going without.

All of these things are adding up and adding up to a travel experience that is more chaotic and cumbersome than it needs to be as I cart more bags than I need laden with too many things for me to find the things I actually need.  It’s a frustrating process, and I am trying to give myself grace.  I truly am.  Giving myself space to learn something new and grace to fail, as is part of the learning process, has always been one of my biggest struggles.  I expect myself to simply know a new thing, and I am brutally hard on myself when I need to learn something new.  I didn’t consider that learning how to travel full-time is the same as learning any other new job, hobby, sport, anything at all that I do.  I somehow thought I was going to toss myself into this traveling lifestyle without a hitch.  Just automatically know what to pack and how to pack it to be efficient, just jump into the flow and, well, flow.  I didn’t give a second thought to the fact that I would need time to learn what works and what doesn’t work for me.  BTW, carrying around three power cords, four headphones, twelve toothbrushes, and an entire extra bin of lotions and soaps ain’t it.  It’s been over a week since I’ve been able to find a single stick of deodorant in all of the chaos.  Unless I want to continue this troublesome trial-and-error method of learning, I need to get real with myself and admit I don’t know what I’m doing.  In order to efficiently learn any new skill, my best course would be to learn from others who have gone before me and already know the ins and outs, ups and downs, successful methods and pitfalls to avoid.  Or, if I’m unwilling or unable to locate a coach to teach me, I guess it’s time for me to start reading articles or blogs or watching videos.  

Here's another rather startling reality that’s kind of slapped me in the face during this whole journey.  This process is a kind of divorce.  And just like a divorce, it’s brutal and ugly, and nasty words have been slung, and people around me have chosen sides.  I divorced the side of me who worked her ass off to overcome and achieve and amass a comfortable bank account and comfortable things in a comfortable home.  I took all of her lovely, high-end furniture and housewares and goods and tossed them out.  I yanked her from her comfortable home and gave away the keys.  I fired her from the job she was so good at and worked so hard to achieve.  I drained and continue to drain her cozy little nest egg in pursuit of my own upcoming adventures.  I took all of the healthy routines she established and drug them down the road behind me, rendering them virtually impossible to maintain.

Friends who know me well, who know that I’ve been craving travel and adventure since forever, jumped on my adventurer’s side of the divorce, cheering and urging me on.  Friends and family on my driven workaholic’s side of the divorce are in utter shock that I would so abusively destroy her and everything she’s worked for.  To be fair, friends on the side of adventurous me are a little appalled at the abusive way I’ve been treating her and all of my various inner children who are shrieking over the destruction of comfort, normalcy, and security.  One friend put it best, “You’re being a bit of a tyrant, and you’re scaring the children!”

They’re not wrong.  I’ve steamrolled and bulldozed my way through this transition just as I have every transition I’ve ever made.  I don’t so much transition as hurdle myself through time and space to the place I want to be next.  A meek, shaky voice, most definitely one of the inner children I’ve so traumatized with all of these less than subtle, less than smooth, less than gentle transitions, morosely clings to, “You could still go back.  We can fix this.  You can go back to the way things were before you kicked apart the life we knew like a bully stomping an anthill.”

But maybe that’s why I’m a bully and a tyrant when it comes to transitioning myself.  The big part of me that’s conducting this run-away train remembers all too vividly the unhappy childhood and all the clinging to, sitting still, and never changing, never growing.  I still feel my parents clinging to me as I tried to make age-appropriate plans to transition to college and/or life beyond.  I still feel my husband clinging to me as I attempted to transition our life of poverty and pain until I finally felt no choice but to grow by myself, even if it meant without him.  I feel all of my inner angst at change and discomfort as I grow and evolve clamoring for me to just let well enough alone and stay put.  And if I don’t make the big, bold moves, I’m just as terrified as all of the terrorized inner pieces of myself that this will be the sum total of my life, sitting still and dreaming of one day.

I can find a gentler way of transitioning.  I need to find a gentler way of transitioning.  I also need to find a way for all of my various selves and inner children to communicate and learn to coexist.  Because sitting still and not evolving, as big and scary as it is, feels like interminable, slow death to a big, big part of me.