Leaving comfort for courage

Courage will always require an element of leaving. Leaving is just plain hard.

Leaving comfort for courage makes me want to wrap my arms around every ounce of safety in my life, hoping if I hold on tight enough that I won’t have to taste the pain of the leaving what I know is inevitable. Leaving comfort and safety looks and sounds alluring and attractive, but the attraction fades quickly—in fact, I have never felt so vulnerable, small, and needy...words that are not known for their alluring appeal.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to question your decision. It will cause you to look around for the safety bars, seatbelt, and any kind of security button. You will look for the easy way out because maybe this isn't worth it.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to try to make something happen. You will scheme, make phone calls, send out Hail Mary e-mails—anything to distract from sitting in the fear.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to doubt your abilities. You will look at everything that you have failed at in the past—failed relationships, failed financial decisions, failed leadership calls—and you will wonder if you will repeat those patterns and if they are indicators to go out and look for comfort again.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to be jealous of your neighbors. They all seem to be perfectly content with their lives. You will wonder if you are some sort of crazy person that has a unhealthy propensity to live on the edge.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to white knuckle yourself around anything that feels secure and semi-safe.

Moving from comfort to courage will cause others to question you. Especially those that have found security to be a bedrock to build their lives on. You will be misunderstood, questioned, and perhaps even seen as foolish.

I am terrified, but I am willing to try.

Ten things to remember in life

1. Learn to put on your bracelets and zip up your dresses by yourself. There will be times when you will be alone. There is nothing wrong with this. These times will make you stronger. Embrace this time as you learn who you really are. Know that you can stand alone.
2. Get on a long plane ride. Look out the window. Understand the immensity of our world. Understand your insignificance. Understand your absolute importance. Explore the world. Try new things. Travel alone. Travel with friends. Learn more about what the world holds.
3. Press the send button. If you don’t say it now, you never will. Do not be afraid to tell people how you feel. Don't ever be afraid to tell someone you care about them. It's okay to cut out the toxic people in your life. Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself. 
4. Do not sneer at happiness or roll your eyes at sadness. Be aware that apathy is not healthy. Find joy in the little things. It's perfectly okay that a cup of coffee makes your day. Don't ridicule others for being happy. Be happy with them. Find happiness together. Find happiness alone.
5. You are more than the amount of people who want to have sex with you. You are more than the number of likes on your pictures. Take that selfie for you. Don't rely on someone else's opinion to make you feel pretty. You are more than the number of people you have had sex with. 
6. That pit in your stomach when he doesn’t text you back, it shouldn’t be there. No one should be able to control you like that. Putting someone else first consistently is a good way to show them that you should come second. Don't let someone not responding dictate your day. Put the phone down. You are more than that. 
7. Shopping is cathartic. Buy the shoes and deal with one-ply toilet paper for a while. Buy something that makes you feel special. You are. You deserve the things that make you happy. 
8. It will get better, but it will never be perfect. Learn to live through the small moments of happiness. When they disappear, remember they will resurface. Keep smiles of yesterday in mind when today is hard. 
9. I promise that cookie will not change anything (except that it will make you smile).Don't be afraid of dessert. Stop worrying about every calorie. It wont kill you. The number on that scale does not define you.
10. Please, please, take care of yourself. You are everything to somebody. You are everything to your self. That alone is enough.

Stop being afraid of living

When the other shoe seems to consistently drop and sadness feels like a perpetual state of being, it’s hard not to tremble in the face of that fleeting feeling called happiness. You’ve become so accustomed to a pessimistic viewpoint that a change in perspective leaves you seeing double or tirelessly squinting or completely blind altogether. So you call it necessary and you label it “defense” and you talk yourself out of unknown situations.

Stop.

Stop being afraid of happiness.

Stop being afraid to look in the mirror and hold your head high despite what a magazine or billboard or a member of the opposite sex considers attractive.

Stop being afraid to smile when they remember to put the toothpaste in the shower because, unlike them, you can’t brush your teeth without making a mess so you kill two birds with one stone every morning.

Stop being afraid of laying back in an armchair and filling your lungs with relaxation and taking the time to appreciate your accomplishments and the hard work that captured them.

Stop being afraid to lean on broad shoulders or hide between frail arms or blink tears that make you look less than desirable but allow you to experience real, unabashed, genuine comfort.

Stop being afraid to sink into a quiet night at their place where you desperately try to cook while they harmlessly chuckle and you both end up ordering from a takeout menu.

Stop being afraid to laugh so hard you snort or cry so hard it hurts or waste days with others that have occupied your life long after the ones you once loved so much have gone.

Stop being afraid to cherish goodbye kisses and good morning whispers and how-was-your-day hugs.

Stop being afraid to show the birthmark you always cover and the scar you got from your father and the message that ended the relationship you compare every subsequent relationship to.

Stop being afraid to admit that you love seeing them every day and miss them when they’re only a few miles away and have a hard time sleeping at night when they’re not next to you.

Stop being afraid to put on music and dance in your underwear and smile for no reason other than you’re enjoying a moment completely alone.

Stop being afraid of that greasy burger or that layered cake or that five cheese macaroni that leaves you in a succulent heaven only calories and sugars can take you.

Stop being afraid of life.

Because the other shoe will drop too many times and sadness will feel like a perpetual state of being more than once and a pessimistic viewpoint will begin to feel all too common again and again.

And in those moments, your happiness will carry you through.

My body is not my own

Whenever a photo of a young, teenage me resurfaces, I can’t help but be floored by how… thin I was. That’s what strikes me first. And I believe it’s probably because at that time, I always thought I was 5-10 lbs away from being at an even remotely acceptable weight. I still wonder who made me believe that “fat” is a label that makes you less of a person, that it’s the one adjective you do not want to be. The answer is nobody really, but everybody at the same time.

I realized that whether or not I was “fat” was a predominant concern of mine, because I had nothing else to justify to myself that I was worth anything more. So I looked to other people and their overwhelmingly enthusiastic comments on my appearance and accepted that as validity of my whole being.

Though this was years ago, I still see women who forcefully, sometimes violently and often bitterly carve themselves back into the perfect teenage bodies they did or didn’t have when their womanly shapes are burgeoning through. And while the better part of me wonders why, my good sense understands exactly. And sometimes I still am that woman, or rather, sometimes I still am that 13-year-old girl, and what that girl did in those days was assign ownership of her body to the people who would judge it. The same thing I still see grown women doing now.

I let the compliments and feelings of love and appreciation for my physical appearance compile and create for me a resting ground on which I knew I could always rely. But that wasn’t enough, because it was built from other people. People who could (and would) retract their doting comments of approval just as quickly as they dished them out. This is the core of instability, my friends. It was that part of myself in which I took pride and ownership, but it was not mine at all. I didn’t love myself for who I was, I loved myself for who I was because other people would love it.

I realized that I was in a place where I would spend forever asking the people I was dating “will you love me if I’m 300 lbs?” and I would spend forever at the whim of the dress that didn’t fit and the legislation that didn’t seem fair and the comments that made me feel whole because they made me believe that on the outside, I was worthy of that feeling. I would spend forever believing that my body would never be mine, rather, something to be adjusted for the sake of other people’s opinions. Opinions, I realized, that were rooted in their own sense of self-deprecation. Not because they were that invested in me.

It was only years and flurries of pant size fluctuation, months of self-loathing and days upon days of searching for the cure to my incessant need to be beautiful in other people’s eyes that a very important truth dawned on me. The problem wasn’t what other people would say or do or believe, it was what I interpreted from those words and actions and thoughts. The problem was me all along.

And so now here I am. An adult woman, defiantly redefining herself each day, moving farther and farther away from unhealthy mindsets and toxic opinions, but who still can’t help but wonder how many girls still believe that their bodies won’t ever be theirs. And it’s one of those things in which no words that I can offer can really heal, because it’s the journey that will save you from it.

So wherever you are on that long, twisty road, reader who made it this far down because something in this struck a chord with you, I hope you realize what I realized far too late in the game. That acceptance is usually not something that arrives in bits and pieces. It sweeps through you when it’s present, it creates avenues where there were road blocks and understanding where there was frustration. Find it in you, dig it out from under the shit pile the world threw on it and let it infiltrate everything. That’s where we dawn on a life that doesn’t require other people to approve of it, and where we’ll all meet eventually, the day we realize that it’s in judging other people that we intoxicate ourselves.