Creature of Habit Seeking Discomfort
She had the perfect life until… Does this sound familiar? You’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a hundred times. A line as common as Once Upon a Time if there ever was one. She had the job, the house, the husband, the friends UNTIL one day she loses her job, and her hubby has cheated and she moves somewhere else and there she finds the right place, the right happy after, the right ending she didn’t know was missing until everything went to hell.
When I was younger I jumped into these stories without giving it too much thought. I guess, back then, before actually working towards building something, the idea of your life falling apart and being rebuilt was just one of the many possibilities.
After a while, these plots started getting tiring. I’d grab a book, turn to the blurb, read that first line and stuff it back on the shelf — cue unconscious eye roll. Upon closer inspection, that frustration was rooted in the fact that everything had to go to hell for the character to realize that they weren’t happy or that something was missing…
UNTIL
Until I had a year when a lot of things broke. I won’t say everything went to hell because let’s not be dramatic for drama’s sake, but it was a shaky year and not everything had sturdy foundations.
And when the aftershocks calmed down, I looked around and rebuilt. I don’t know if it was all unequivocally better than before, but it felt pretty great. I was excited for a lot of the opportunities around me.
A lot of people said I should have left that job sooner, quit that friendship earlier, prioritized that project earlier... Retrospect is full of should’ve, could’ve, would’ves. In retrospect, it seemed that everyone but me could tell that I needed a change or eleven.
Naturally, my writer/reader mind went back to those blurbs I used to hate. Had I been that obviously oblivious character waiting for an until? Self-preservation, fear of the unknown, avoiding change… it does make some sort of sense. I’ve made no secret of being a fearful person, but I did think I was self-aware, and yet … I could have argued that I was doing great.
UNTIL
Until my cables a tierra snapped, and I was unwired, unrooted, and uncertain. Then the initial shock passed and I realized I was also lighter, hopeful, and happier.
I started last year with a new part-time gig, and a new block of hours to dedicate solely to writing. I was working with new people on new projects. I was also enjoying morning walks around the neighborhood playing tourist. I became a regular at a cafe and made friends with other regulars. They seem like small things, and mostly they were. Tiny changes, tiny chance encounters, tiny things I now had time for.
Then somewhere along the way, I fell back into the daily grind. I took on a second job, let the drafts sit in the drafts drawer, and I could convince anyone that I knew exactly what I was doing. It was temporary with a capital T, it was part of a plan, and I’m so good at planning. All was good, all was great UNTIL…
Until I looked around and wondered if it was what I wanted. Nothing happened, nothing broke and nothing shattered, but I realized how far I had strayed from the original path that had so excited me. It was like I woke up one day wondering if it was time to self-correct. Wondering where to start, and how to re-find the path I’d left; tracing the outline of decisions trying to identify what had shaped them.
I know why the grind was appealing. Maybe I’ve lost the Genz-ers along the way but a lot of us who are a little older, we’ve been brought up to seek security. To work towards something. The savings account, the career experience puffing up my CV in case the writing didn’t work out… these were all things everyone understood. Knitting the safety net was comforting, unlike the daunting dream that I could finish the book, get published, and live differently than how I had previously imagined.
But I don’t want to wait for another until. I don’t want another ten years to go by before I try. It might not make a good book blurb, but everything is fine, and nothing is on fire, except the little voice in my mind saying your priorities are messed up. So I started making changes, without the universe tossing me and turning me in a tumultuous wave.
Everything is fine and nothing is on fire and I’m choosing to try something different anyway, making changes, taking chances. It’s not about starting from scratch, I don’t think I need to break everything down to try something different. Nothing too drastic or dramatic, just drawing a few question marks, getting cozy with uncertainty, a creature of habit seeking a little discomfort.
