Get comfortable with the uncomfortable

In a few months my life will be very different. This change is fun and exciting but also evokes anxiety. I cannot dive into the details just yet but that Robert Frost, boy, he was onto something when he said, "take the road less traveled." I find comfort in having a routine; a settled home base, plans, convenience and familiarity. But too much comfort can create a wicked uncomfortableness. It is so easy to become "stuck" and afraid to try new things for fear of the unknown. Why take a big leap when your feet closely identify with the ground underneath? Because you might find you will land somewhere better. Because, as cliche as it is, everything happens for a reason. A solid plan doesn't always work out and embracing the twists and turns of life can get you farther than a strict regime. Despite the anxiety I occasionally feel when thinking about the unknowns in my future, I know that no matter what I'm going to be okay and all these foreign happenings have me pretty flippin' ecstatic. Like happy dance, singing Glee songs excited. My mature self also knows that living for today and embracing every moment is necessary. You don't grow as a person if you are looking to the future for answers or dwelling on the past and wondering, "what if." Ask those 'what if's' now. Create and seize the opportunities of today, it might be scary but it's time to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Four years ago I graduated UNH and moved home to New Jersey. I had all my ducks in a row. Live at home for a few months, intern at a great company which would "inevitably" turn into a full time position and move to Hoboken or Morristown, NJ with high school friends. After a few summer trips up north visiting friends in NH and Boston, I started feeling antsy. I really really missed New England. An itch I wasn't sure how to scratch went from an odd dull sensation to full on hives so to speak. It was August and my dream internship had still not offered me a full time position. I stayed up late one night browsing the UNH alumni website and just for shits and giggles I started applying to jobs in Boston and NH. I had a few calls. I landed the interview and in a mere two weeks I was back up in NH looking for apartments. WOW, from then on unexpected amazingness ensued. I got the job, located a small one bedroom apt. in Portsmouth, NH, and discovered an independent woman inside of me. If a genie would have told me in the spring of 2006 that I would move home to NJ and then move back to NH and love it, I would have told them they were craaaaaaaaaaaaazy and demanded my money back. Since I didn't see a physic or fortune teller, no one told me that, instead I was just paying attention and I am glad I turned right instead of left. Fast forward a few years and I cannot imagine my life anywhere else. Well, maybe one other place :)

The point of this rumination is straight forward: live for today. I don't want to get all zen preacher on you but worrying about the future, what hasn't happened yet, is silly. Because you don't know what is going to occur. We can get so caught up in this weekend, next week, this fall that we lose focus on today. If it wasn't for the twists, turns, ups, downs, and sideways paths life wouldn't be a journey. If you are debating something new, I say go for it. Challenge yourself. Grow. If you fall or the nerves become too much, keep calm and carry on. The things we regret in life are the things we do not do. I know you have heard that one before, I am just here to refresh the memory.

:words and pictures of wisdom:

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

-Bob Marley

"So many roads. So many detours. So many choices." -Carrie, Sex and The City