How Do You Do It Differently?

Seriously, I want to know!  I feel so stuck in a pattern that is almost as old as I am.  How do I stop being avoidant?  Yesterday, I went to the grocery store.  There were people outside trying to get signatures for some referendum about taxes.  I saw them as I walked in and immediately felt threatened.  I didn’t WANT to talk to them, I didn’t WANT to hear their pitch.  I didn’t WANT to sign their stupid petition! I was annoyed as fuck that I had to walk the gauntlet just to go buy some food!  So I went in the other door thinking I would avoid them, but they had another fucker stationed at the other door that I didn’t see right away...

He tried to talk to me, but I just ignored him and kept walking.  I could have just said, “I am not interested...” But that felt like such a big ask.  I didn’t want to engage.  I didn’t want to have to deal with them...so I didn’t.

When I left the store they were still out there, and I actually pretended to be on a call. When the guy started talking to me, I pointed to my phone and then said into my phone, “uh huh, yes I get that...”

What the actual fuck is wrong with me?

Why are people so threatening to me?  Why do I want to avoid them so much?  Why can’t I just walk up and say, “thanks but no thanks,” and just keep walking?  Why did I have to go to these lengths to avoid them?  Wouldn’t it have just been easier to walk in and walk out and tell them I wasn’t interested?

I wish Vons was the only place this comes up for me...but it isn’t.

I do a lot of avoiding in my life.  People, situations, conversations, relationships.  Something makes me uncomfortable, then I am going to avoid it.  I have been doing it for years.  I have moved just to get out of a relationship I didn’t know how to end.  And I didn’t move across town, I moved across the country...

I know this has been a life long issue but I think I haven’t made really any progress on it because I valued it.  I thought it was kinda cool to be avoidant.  I thought it made me hard or tough or whatthefuckever.  I didn’t know that it just made me avoidant and that made me not good relationship material...and so here I am at 56 finally willing to really look at how much and often I avoid.

I want to do it differently, but come on, if I am going to avoid the guys at Vons who mean absolutely nothing to me, how the fuck am I going to not avoid a partner or someone much more intimate to my life???

I really don’t know.  I am at a loss. So much of my behavior is just habitual and instinctual.  So much that just feels like the ONLY thing to do.  I do not want to be uncomfortable, so I avoid situations and people who are going to make me feel uncomfortable and try as I might, I just can’t seem to find the willingness to change or do it differently. In fact, the older I get, the worse it feels like it is getting.

I have no solutions today...just a lot of fucking questions.  I am baffled.  I am confused.  I am over here avoiding like a mother fucker.  And I can’t seem to stop it.  And I want to.  But right now this need to not feel uncomfortable and so to deploy avoidance, is stronger than my willingness and need to change.  And I am really not sure how to change any of this.

So I sit in acceptance.  I do this.  I avoid.  It is my most well worn, well used escape mechanism.  And I have tried to create a life that I don’t want to escape from, and have made some progress.  I just can’t seem to find the willingness though to stop all this avoiding...fuck.  I don’t like it but I am really not sure what else to do at this point.

So I am there again, still...

Sigh.