Growing Pains

My day to day life isn’t very difficult.  I will be the first to admit that.  Especially these days now that school is out for the summer and nobody is projectile vomiting in front of my desk.  (Actually, I take that back.  The rat in my ceiling vent was pretty traumatic.)  I don’t have anyone to take care of other than myself (even though I don’t always do the best job of that.  Let's talk again in a year after I learn how to go to bed before midnight and how to eat something for dinner other than trail mix).  I don’t have any diseases or life-threatening illnesses, and my body is strong and whole and healthy.  I have food to eat, a place to live, a car to get me around, good water pressure in the shower, and wi-fi in my apartment.    

But still.  This week I find myself coming up against multiple things I don’t want to do, and it really weighs on me.  It makes me sick to my stomach.  I find myself dreading this undesirable thing the entire day long.  It’s not like I have to do something terrifying, like going scuba diving, or something painful, like giving birth.  It’s more the anticipation of finding myself in awkward interactions with other people.   

When I was 19, I had an epiphany that I don’t have to do things I don’t want to do (mostly as a subset to the realization you don’t have to marry people you don’t want to marry, which is still a semi-pervasive fear) but, well, I’m now realizing that sometimes...you do.  On occasion, you will need to talk to people you don’t want to talk to.  You might have to stick out an uncomfortable social situation.  You might be given more responsibility than you know how to handle.  You might have to talk to strangers on the phone.  You might even have to go on blind dates from time to time.   

You might just have to.  

But at the same time, I know I can do hard things.  I know I can (usually) do scary things.  (Except for haunted houses.)  What’s the worst that could happen? I could die.  Eh.  So you’re uncomfortable for a little bit.  You’ll be fine.

As I’m sure someone’s wise grandpa has said to them before:

There’s no growth in the comfort zone and there’s no comfort in the growth zone.  

At the end of every semester during college, I would participate in a little harp recital with a few other harp students to showcase what we had learned in our lessons over the last few months.  Those harp recitals were some of the most nerve-wracking days of my college career, not because I had to be in front of other people or even because I had to perform, but because I had to play my music from memory.  No matter how many times I’d run through my Tournier or my Prokofiev pieces, no matter how certain I was that my fingers knew the strings and my feet knew the pedals, I would work myself up into a frenzy of nerves in anticipation over the possibility that I had to perform without my music, without a back-up, without a security blanket.  I was uncomfortable knowing what a great margin of error lay in those four anxiety-inducing minutes as I was faced with the possibility of completely blowing my performance in front of other people.  But guess what? None of those recitals killed me.  Sure, some were better than others.  At my very first one, I fumbled right at the beginning, put the harp down, announced to the audience that I had messed up - something you are NOOOOOT supposed to do when performing - and awkwardly started over.  (Okay, so some performances were A LOT better than others.) But even still: life went on.  I made it through, I gained experience and confidence in performing from memory, and none of those performances scarred me for life.

 

On the other side of hard, difficult, or uncomfortable obstacles, life continues on.  I can guarantee there will still be awkwardness and weird social situations.  I’ll probably end up inadvertantly stroking someone’s sweater vest again or patting a bald man's head without asking permission first, or maybe I'll continue to accidentally grab people’s faces when they try to kiss me.   

It’s inevitable. Life will be awkward and occasionally uncomfortable.   

But those experiences don't have to be the end.  

And heck.  Maybe you'll even get a good story out of one.