February 17 - Fear Factor
One of the clearest voices I’ve always been able to hear, is the voice that tells me when it’s time to get out of dodge.
What is an action you will take in opposition to a fear this year?
I will make moves. At some point, about a decade ago, I realized that I’d never really had a comfort zone and so I made it my mission to create one. Growing up moving every year and a half set the the tone for the rest of my life. Always moving. The minute that last picture was hung on the wall, it was the sign to pack up and head out. That pattern worsened when left to my own devices.
In my twenties I bounced around America moving from Minnesota to Los Angeles back to Minnesota to Rhode Island to Santa Monica back to Rhode Island where I would move six times in five years before driving around America for nine months, back to Rhode Island before heading to Utah and then back to Los Angeles at last. It was bonkers. I was bonkers.
It was time to settle down, and settle down I did. I got sober, got a dog, got married and even had baby! I’ve managed to only have two addresses in the past sixteen years—a personal record. But I’m stagnant.
One of the clearest voices I’ve always been able to hear, is the voice that tells me when it’s time to get out of dodge. Whether it’s a party in high school, or a country, or a walk on the beach that starts feeling sketchy—I have always honored my instinct to bounce. Because of circumstances that were out of my control, I was not able to leave Los Angeles when I first had the intuition that it was time to go because life is no longer (thankfully) all about me. Then I got pregnant and thank God for our family.
I ignored that inner voice at a cost, though. Los Angeles does not feel like the place I originally moved to in 2000 or returned to in 2007. Now it feels like a city that’s going through a rough patch—and that’s fine for people who can afford to stay above the fray—but for a young family we have no upward mobility and it doesn’t feel safe. Not to mention the insanity in all the schools. So no more ignoring that instinct, even though I’m comfortable and it’s scary to make such a huge change, and there are so many people, places and things I’m going to miss, it’s time to honor my gut—and get out.
At last, a label for myself - I’m a bouncer too. I used to think I was a bolter; no commitment, no stick-at-it-ness, a constant avoidance of reality, of pain really. I bounced last St Patrick’s Day, and ever since I’ve been bouncing (or have been being bounced) like one of those crazy rubber super balls. And all the time wondering. Did I just leave in a sort of childish temper tantrum, was I just running away from a painful (for me) situation? Or was there something deeper going on, some message from the unconscious; that this is no longer where I need to be. In all the bounces in my life, this has been the pattern. But as I have grown older, maybe wiser, in retrospect each bounce feels right, even inevitable. A rebirth, a chance to grow, to learn. And a leap into the dark, off a cliff, away from safety and security and complacency, into a not-knowing blind faith and trust in the goodness of being and becoming. If I have made mistakes (if?!) it’s more often been not letting go, clinging on to nurse for fear of something worse
Getting married.
In my 20s, I was the typical pseudo-intellectual hedonist who liked to bash the concept of marriage, point out the high divorce rates, speculate on the possibility of even higher infidelity rates, and generally treat dating culture like a selfish party where everyone is just out to get theirs. Marriage and family was crashing and burning and I reveled in dancing in the flames. I thought I was unique for being this way but really I was pretty common.
Maybe I was just afraid to keep getting hurt, especially when everything about modern dating culture promotes sex, money, and entertainment above genuine connections, mutual respect, and faithfulness. I got played in high school. Heartbroken in college. So at the dawn of my post-grad bachelorhood, I adopted a “when in Rome” attitude, erected an unassailable wall around my feelings, numbed myself with copious amounts of alcohol, and just decided to have fun.
By my late 20s, it was impossible to have fun this way. It took a once in a century pandemic to close down the bars and give me some time to reflect on things, and I was fortunate enough to find someone I could finally trust and open up to. I still wonder sometimes about how marriage and family will fare for society at large, but regardless of how that goes, I’ll try to carve out a good example for my own kids anyways.