The Thing About Comfort Zones...

Is they are only comfortable for a little while...

Then they beg, plead, insist and demand that you remove yourself from them, only to create new ones in fairly short order.  And then, once more, you are asked, pushed, decided, removed all over again.

Seems like such a futile effort...

To keep creating comfort zones over and over again, but I have come to think of this process as more of the curation of rest stops in life rather than ridiculous attempts to lock in.  No one who is growing in their life remains in a comfort zone forever.  You can’t grow and change and remain comfortable.  They are incompatible...in order to grow you must reach beyond yourself, beyond the immediate space around you that feels good, right and true.  In order to grow, you have to be willing to risk everything and do the thing you least want to do, be uncomfortable.

I get how hard it is.  I hate being uncomfortable.  I don’t want to be too hot or cold.  I don’t want itchy, pilled sheets.  I don’t want scratchy tags poking me.  I don’t want too much to eat or too little.  I don’t want to be emotionally wasted or laid bare, but I don’t want to be locked in or out as the case may be.

My life could be said to have been a constant and unremitting search for that sweet spot where everything aligns and I am finally comfortable.  And I have been quite successful in finding and moving into those spaces in my life...but I have also come to loathe those very same places.  Places that once felt homey and generous began to feel tight and troublesome.  Sometimes it was the physical space, the job, the idea, the person, the relationship, but I always know when I am no longer able to fit into my current reality.  And I still resist the change that is going to come whether I want it to or not...I think I just resist it less now and am more willing to abandon my comfort zone because I know that there is another one coming in a little while.  And I always seem to find a comfortable place to rest, enjoy, cherish and relish.

The only area of my life where I have never found a comfort zone at all is in a relationship with a man. No matter how much love, adoration, sexual chemistry, I have never found a relationship where I could describe how I felt as comfortable, or safe.  I think this is partly because I never tried to have those things in a relationship.  Sad to say, but I never thought to even ask for them.  I wanted the high, more than I wanted comfort and safety.  I wanted the thrill of demonic mood swings and precarious love affairs.  I loved the excitement of a devil may care dude.  Until I didn’t.

At this stage of my life, I feel like I won because I found comfort and safety with myself.  I am no longer willing to sacrifice my emotional wellbeing for a quick good time.  Doesn’t matter how much chemistry I have with the guy, if I don’t feel safe and comfortable, fuck it and him.  Sometimes I think I healed too much because the pleasure of my own company is so great, that I am not even motivated to look any longer for that man that feels like home.  Partly, I will admit, because I have lost faith that that man exists for me.  I got 40 years invested in the search and only battle wounds and scars to show for it.  Well, that and my hilarious personality curated by a lifetime of trauma and sarcasm.

I often ask myself, “why the fuck don’t you just give up?”  And the answer is simple:  then I would be allowing myself to live within a comfort zone.  I have provided myself a hybrid situation that is neither uncomfortable or comfortable; I am not dating but I am not not dating.  I am living my life and taking it and any men that cross my path as they come.  I am not going to just jump in and allow them access.  They are going to have to prove their worthiness and their interest beyond the very shallow interest that is what passes for dating today.  If someone wants me, they are going to have to show up, maintain my interest and be willing to wait to get to know me over time.  I am not jumping into bed, I am not making a commitment, if you want to have me as a partner, you are going to have to prove, over time, you are worth my time, effort and attention.

It has taken me a long time to get here and even as I wrote the above words, I felt uncomfortable, so I must be doing it right.  No comfort zone hideouts here.  I feel weird about ransoming myself off as some sort of prize, but I am the prize and it has taken me my whole fucking lifetime to get here!  I know my worth today and it is going to take a lot more than a clever come on to win me over.  This life that is all mine, all the time, is worth the peace, effort and enjoyment I receive on the daily...so if someone wants to be included in that, then they are going to have to be patient and realize that a life with me is going to require you too to get out of your comfort zone and grow, change and be accountable because I will insist upon it, for both of us.

I may never get there.  And that is ok.  I have accepted that which I cannot change.  I can change my own comfort zones and my willingness to endure them, but I cannot do that work for another.  Not my kids, not my friends and certainly not a lover.

Quite inadvertently I have created another comfort zone:  my single, freedom loving life.  I get to do what I want, when I want.  It is amazing and wonderful and worth every painful curveball and line drive I took to my chest.  And it has become a sanctuary, that will also require me to grow beyond my need to preserve the current one to create another situs with a co-creator.  Have no idea if I have it in me, but I know that I can’t draw the line, “no never!”  Instead, so it would seem, I have to remain in the “if it be God’s will” flow.  And trust that my lessons in this life never have a hard time finding me.  Aint’ that the fucking truth!

Again, still...