discovering comfort outside of the familiar zone

unpolished thoughts 12/22/2018

Today I was talking to my partner about patterns and we realized that we had two different experiences with people.

Because of her living circumstances, her work, and other factors, she is not so used to being alone. She values her time alone, but it simply isn’t the norm for her. Most of her life has been in community.

She is most familiar with herself in the experience of interacting with others.

I’m the opposite.

While of course I am not always alone, I am often alone. It is the situation in which I know myself the best.

There are clearly advantages to both situations and everyone will have their biases and preferences. But what interested us was this question of familiarity – what we are used to.

We tend to think of the familiar as being the most comfortable. It’s not entirely untrue, but neither is it always true. In fact, assuming that the familiar is the most comfortable is often dangerously limiting.

As I write this, I am home alone.

I wasn’t home this morning and I wasn’t alone. But when I arrived here, something inside immediately felt easier.

This is me – in my environment. I control the settings. I adjust the surroundings to myself, not the other way around.

Nearly two years ago, I went out dancing. That’s when I met Margarita, who I now recognize to be the love of my life. But I came close to not going out that night.

I was lonely, but being out into the world still looked more uncomfortable than staying home.

It just so happened that I had just been through a series of experiences that made me intensely aware of the limitations of my solitude. There was an impulse to act on the desire for change that was uncharacteristically stronger than my normal inclination to cocoon myself.

Later I made fun of Margarita for the “weird” thing she said to me that evening.

We should be friends!”

“No one says that!” I asserted (in the face of clear evidence to the contrary).

Of course, she didn’t see anything odd about it. For Margarita, making connections is a habit. She simply can’t imagine not doing it and she connects with people everywhere she goes.

I love the warmth of good company. But I still love to be alone. So I often have to make a deliberate effort to connect my insides to the outside world.

Meeting Margarita is my proof of the value of stepping outside of your comfort zone. It’s more convincing to me than any other argument because it’s a difference that I can feel in my body.

As the New Year approaches, I am preparing to celebrate the 2-year anniversary of continuously feeling that feeling.

I will be forever grateful to the impulse in my body that night, that wouldn’t be quiet, and made me step outside of the way that I was accustomed to knowing myself, to be more alive.

Margarita is pure sunshine. Because of her, light now shines on me on parts of me that were previously in shadow.

Through our connection to one another, we expand the ways in which we know ourselves.