I’ve been looking over the posts from the last year, and although my intention was to use a title for a post only once, it appears that I accidentally reused at least the word comfortable. Which was the subject of both #56 about life and #242 about clothes.
I find this mistake interesting.
The word comfortable also appears in a number of posts: #55, #56, #139, #159, #242, #253, #265, #352, and #353. And now #361.
I was hoping this project would make me more comfortable with myself. And it did. I can talk about myself now, which at the end of 2014 was impossible.
But I’m a private person. This year didn’t change that.
Cheryl Strayed wrote,
And part of the work is about getting comfortable being uncomfortable, learning how to say, “Hello, fear, thank you for being here, because you are my indication that I’m doing what I need to do.”
In post 265, I wrote this:
So I’m down to the last hundred posts in this year of catching me–this year of looking at the photos, digging up memories, finding the words to fill in the spaces. I’m taking up more room these days. And I’m more comfortable. I’m discovering things and remembering things. I’m starting to understand how I got to this moment. I will probably always be a private person but from now on, at least I will know who I am.
What this year did was make me more comfortable with the uncomfortable. What it did was to teach me to go after the uncomfortable. This year has encouraged me to get back to the risk-taking self I once was. Hello, fear. Thank you.
~
365 true things about me
why this daily practice
Worth the journey right there.
I’ve wanted to tell you for some time how your experiment with your own discomfort dislodged some of mine. In the process, your experiment and honesty actually changed the trajectory of my life and, I hope, my writing. It started when you were doing the Thirty-something project, whatever that was (I never really quite understood it except that it had to do with eating and taking care of yourself better.) I was loping along with you for a day or two before I realized that hey, I have no problem (now) with eating or doing yoga or meditating or walking. I eat healthy locally grown food when I can, have no interest in “junk food,” and I walk/do yoga/meditate every day.
My issues were more subtle ways of not caring for myself. I wanted a MacBook Air, but didn’t let myself have one for about two years after starting my research. I used a clunky desktop that kept failing and would cause me to lose my work. Meanwhile, on my property, I had a “guest cottage” that mostly stood empty. I used it for meditation but didn’t want to move my desktop computer and office up there.
Somewhere along the line of reading your posts, I “magically” gave myself permission, finally, to buy my MacBook and then to teach myself to set it up. I faced enormous fear and phobia about this; my learning curve was precipitous. Then I treated myself to a three-hour tutorial with a computer guy. Almost by accident, I found that hey, now I was untethered from a desk and here was this gorgeous space, 10×12, all windows overlooking the sea, and my guest cottage became an myself an exquisite writing space.
Guests can have the main house, which they prefer anyway! This is mine!
In this almost-year, you were able to break out of being private to sharing more of yourself, and thus finding a level of comfort. I want you to know that changing your own life impacted one of your readers in a powerful and life-changing way.
Thank you Cynthia.
Kirie, wow. I got a little choked up reading your comment. I wondered so often whether you got that MacBook Air, and I’m happy to know you did. And that you’re now using it in your own writing cottage with windows overlooking the sea. Heaven. I’m happy to have had a small part in all this transformation. Happy to know you’ve said your own hellos to fear and emerged on the other side : ) If only you could cure me of junk food! I’ve missed hearing from you.
You’re so right, Anne.
This is very cool, Cynthia. To have this type of project accomplish something that significant—you succeeded. And who says being a private person is a bad thing? 🙂
Not me : )