Don’t Get Too Comfortable

BUNNY

(c) 2014 NKW-Illustration. All rights reserved.

Life happens and, unfortunately, it’s not all springtime and rainbows. There are storms. The wind can be taken out of your sails, the bunny slippers stolen from your feet. Just when you think you couldn’t be happier, just when you think you’re safe.

But not being in a perpetual state of comfort is not a bad thing. Sometimes, we need to be reminded that life has rough edges and sharp corners, and it can’t always be controlled. This should engender a healthy respect for life; it should foster a feeling that nothing and no one should be taken for granted.

While I obviously never wish anyone to come to harm, I’m glad I don’t live a charmed life. I wouldn’t have anything to write about. On which note, I need to let you know that the countdown is almost over! Scarf-gate has been resolved. The battle is won and my first book, The Night Butterflies, is forthcoming!

 ….

I stopped writing there last night. Usually, I write a post all in one go and hit publish. But there was something I wanted to say, and I couldn’t quite say it. Then I read this post this morning by Gunmetal Geisha, You Probably Think This Post Is About You. Needless to say, I did. The messages in it are exactly what I wanted to share.

Don’t get too comfortable – because all your comfort can come to an end in a heartbeat. But enjoy the discomfort of uncertainty. Embrace every minute, every hour. Enjoy. Laugh. Love. I’d rather live an uncomfortable life – one of highs and lows, triumphs and defeats – than one lived in a single, steady trough, no dips, no peaks.

The Geisha says, ‘I’d like to think people are subject to the same amount of rejecting and rejection. But there are those who proclaim they’ve never been rejected. Good for them, I say, until it turns out they are the same people who say they don’t know what it feels like to be in love. Here’s what it feels like:  Opening your chest like a coat and letting in sunlight.  Naturally, you’re then open for the cold elements and letdown too. So it makes sense for a person all bundled in a safe, zipped-up chest not to feel either rejection or being in love. For myself, I choose to walk coatless.’

And so do I. As I ended up commenting: When someone is the sunshine, when it’s they who makes your day, every day, and suddenly the thing they want to change about their life is seeing You every day – that hurts. It makes a hole. It feels horrible and bitter and, while you’re still utterly in love, utterly immersed in someone else, their rejection of you makes you feel less and less in love with yourself, makes you feel less, full-stop. If the person you placed at the centre of your universe can’t love you, how will you find love?

But I’d rather walk through this world with coat cast off and feel like this right now than never know love in the first place. I’d rather be uncomfortable and cold sometimes – then know what it feels like to be warm again.

Do you walk through this world coatless? If you don’t, try unbuttoning it. There is nothing like the feeling of warmth on your skin, of love in your heart. 

12 thoughts on “Don’t Get Too Comfortable

  1. Kelly Roberts

    I live in this constant dichotomy of being equally terrified of and excited about uncertainty. I’ve always loved surprises, and there’s nothing more surprising than the uncertainty of the future, and who and what it holds.

    But I’m also a planner by nature and, well, the uncertainty of the future, and who and what it holds can rarely be planned for. I haven’t figured out how to rectify or at least accept that…it feels like I’m constantly punching myself and giving myself a massage at the same time.

    I also love that your post riffed off another’s. I do that myself and see others do it too, and I’m convinced there’s really only about a dozen blog posts that have ever been written in the entire world…the rest are millions of riffs off those dozen. I like that.

    Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      Ah yes, it’s a strange dichotomy! Swings and roundabouts – I both enjoy spontaneity and crave security; want to enjoy unfettered movement and love stillness. Lol life’s a massage of punches indeed.

      I love it when another post sparks me; this one saved me, telling me at exactly the right time what I needed to hear, what I was trying to say – it happened with you too -your post on gratitude 😀

      Reply
  2. saraletourneau

    Awwwwww. I’m happy you found something that was exactly what you wanted and needed to read, Sara. I’ve been thinking of you quite a bit since you came home, with the shock of the break-up and the Battle of Scarfgate (YAY for victory, btw!). Both combined must have been discouraging beyond words. But from this article, it sounds like you’ve found a way up, out, and away from it. 🙂

    Your post reminds me of two similar yet different ideas. In some ways, I live coatless; in other ways, I don’t. When it comes to writing, creativity, and related things, I open myself as wide as I can. I’m bound to run into setbacks and rejection as a result (especially when the time comes for manuscript feedback and agency queries), and not everyone agrees it should be the focus of my life (*cough* dayjob *cough*), but I love writing so much that it feels wrong to not pursue it and share that love with the world.

    With people, it’s a whole other story, probably because I’m a textbook introvert. I struggle with small talk and opening up to strangers unless I can find a common interest right away. And while I don’t mind attending social events, I don’t attend many because they drain and frustrate me because of my introversion – which in turn means I rarely meet new people. When I read messages like yours and Geisha’s, my first reaction is “This is what I *should* be doing, but I hit an internal brick wall each time.” Then I think about it again, and my second reaction is “I shouldn’t be so critical of myself. As long as I take off that coat when I’m in the right place, with the right people, under the right circumstances, I *am* doing it. I just can’t forget to do it, that’s all.” And that’s the point for some of us: To remember to kick off the bunny slippers and unbutton the coat so we can open ourselves up to more love and warmth (and the occasional cold and rejection) every now and then. No one likes the cold, but every winter is followed by spring, right?

    Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      Thanks Sara – it all has been discouraging, but hopefully small victories are going to keep building up and building up, and the book is a big victory! Thanks for your support through it all 🙂

      I completely understand – I make an effort to be open when it comes to writing and creativity, but that’s a choice. It’s more of an effort there to invite open up and pour it out and invite rejection, because it would be easy not to; it would be easy to shield yourself from it.

      When it comes to the heart, it isn’t so much a choice. I’m happy to be coatless.. Somehow, whatever happens, whoever hurts me, I remain that way. And I’m glad. But there is no *should*, I agree that it’s worthwhile to make a point of remembering – remembering what’s possible when we allow ourselves sometimes to get out the way of ourselves and just let it be.

      And I completely agree – every winter Is followed by spring 🙂

      Reply
  3. ontyrepassages

    It’s uplifting to hear you’ve weathered your recent storms, Sara, and discovered that within were the components needed to enrich your life despite the pain caused. Your outlook with serve you well, not just because moving forward becomes less fearful, but because you recognize how even pain is a building block in our growth as individuals.

    I’ve no desire for a charmed life, for refusing to see uncertainty merely strengthens its impact. That’s my head talking, though, for my heart has long wore her coat. I came into this world coatless to discover the sun unrelenting in its desire to burn and the air frigid in its disregard for my welfare. That sounds dispirited, I know, for that was long my outlook. In recent times I’ve longed for the coatless life so long denied. We’ll see.

    Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      Thank you Christina, I think it’s important to move forward at all and not stall; it would be so easy to spiral. Ah, it doesn’t sound dispirited, but poignant. If you long for the coatless life for yourself then I long for the weather to improve for you so the future holds nothing but summer.

      Reply
  4. Deborah Makarios

    This reminds me of a quote from Madeleine L’Engle: “It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.”
    That said, I think I’m a top-button-undone kind of a person – a little bit open. Probably rooted in my past, as these things usually are…
    So glad to hear Scarfgate is resolved! I hope you are going to have a party to celebrate Night Butterflies overcoming all these hurdles and crossing the line – or at least open a bottle of bubbly with a friend.

    Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      That is a great quote, and so true. I love Madeleine L’Engle, especially her Wrinkle in Time!

      Top button’s still something 🙂

      Thank you! Ah, I’ve just hit Go finally.. And do you know, with everything, I don’t even have bubbles or friends on standby. How awful is that, with everything I keep saying about trying to live in the present. I’ll definitely take a moment at some point… Stupid as it sounds, thank you for reminding me – I really mean it!

      Reply

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