Pushed To The Brink Of Comfort

There are all these schools of thoughts on change in humans. Evolution. Adaptation. Improvisation. Survival of the fittest. Education. But they all center around one assumption: that people can change. That they can overcome who they are, what they are, where they’re from, the people that raised them, the time period that molded them, and the reasons and circumstances that brought them to their present. And I say overcome for all people, because all people come about with something in them that digs at them, begging to be fixed or improved. But it doesn’t matter if people improve or not, because it all boils down to the same thing: it’s not just CAN you change, it’s WILL you change. Will you be the thing or the person that you’re able to be or will you spend the rest of your life wondering if you could really do it? Will you take a chance and fail, but feel better because at least you know that didn’t have it in you, didn’t have what was necessary to make real what was in your head? Will you be able to live your life, looking yourself in the mirror every day, knowing that you haven’t made it, or knowing that you haven’t made it yet, or knowing that you’ve already made it?

It feels unnatural at times, the path that we’re on. The things we’re just doing, or trying to do, or even trying not to do. The habits, the tasks, the responsibilities that start as a hassle and that become normal. And in some ways we have to push ourselves to accept each new reality for us. I can think of so many little things in my life that I had to develop a habit of accepting, things that are now just normal, just expected, that another person may find to be mind-boggling and out of nowhere. Like the way a certain door squeaks when you open it slow enough. Neighbors that always fight on Thursdays. AM traffic followed up by PM traffic. A boss that never wants to talk to you. Having to get used to a new type of deli meat. Mental adjustments to these things on a daily basis happen, and we constantly wrestle with if it’s a big deal or not. In the grand scheme of things, of course it’s not a big deal. But it’s your life, so to you, each are something you deal with, something you expect to be one way and then it’s slightly different, and in your mind, everything else has the capability of changing now.

And yet, given enough time, that’s now the new normal. That’s now what you expect, what you rely on, hell, that’s what you want:

You want to hear that door squeak, or maybe you just get used to opening the door up faster. If it doesn’t, you might actually open it a few more times now, just to see what’s up with the squeak. Where’d it go? What the hell happened to the door? Did you fix the door? I didn’t fix this door? Is someone fixing stuff in this house and not telling anyone?

The neighbors aren’t fighting this Thursday? That’s weird, right? They’re always crashing dishes and slamming doors right about- Oh shit, did Kevin finally kill Barbara? Did he strangle her at the dinner table?! I didn’t think it had gotten this bad, I thought she’d just leave him. Are both of their cars still in the driveway? You check, I’ll see if I can find any signs of struggle from the upstairs window.

Traffic doesn’t happen in the AM once, and you’re happy, but you might also be confused. You’re psyched, but at the same time, you’re secretly hoping there isn’t some huge thing that happened or is happening, and you are one of few idiots that doesn’t know about it. Like you turn on the news radio, and there’s some horrible shootout going on and the cops are trying to block people off of the road that you’re still on.

And your boss suddenly wants to start trying to speak with you and it CREEPS YOU OUT. He just wants to bring you into his office to tell you how well you are doing, and you feel like he’s about to straight up fire your ass, you start sweating and mentally preparing your defense of why your numbers a little down and you made that questionable comment to the girl in marketing last month. Or you get ready to go in there and cuss him out, turn his table over and storm out.

I used to be accustomed to working 60 hours a week. It felt like I was just working and sleeping. I had this year not too long ago that I couldn’t find a job and wasn’t really qualified to do anything, and I had to scrape together hours from two, at times three, jobs at once. All different locations, schedules, bosses, coworkers, tasks to complete. It was a task to keep it all straight and remember where I would need to be on which days and how much time I would need to get from one place to another, and in a way, it felt good to be that busy. Not just so that I could finally pay for everything I needed to have going (for a little while, anyway) but I felt tested by it and it was nice to actually have something that was demanding real effort from me. I won’t go into detail, but the jobs themselves were not high level occupations, and the tasks were monotonous and menial. I’m not even going to describe who I was working with, because a lot of those people were also way above the jobs we were doing.

At one point, I was working as a Customer Service Rep on the west side of Madison (doesn’t matter where), and a temp job at a production plant on the North side, and a night time job downtown, near my apartment. Back and forth, start and stop, sprint to, rest up, sprint back. This was my life, for months. But I got used to it all. The schedule got to the point that I developed this feeling when I was about to be double booked, and I could reliably check all of my schedules and find the thing that didn’t fit with what I was about to commit to. And I managed somehow to still drink myself silly a few nights a week. And maybe it didn’t hurt that I was willing to risk a wicked hangover at any of these jobs because I thought having a good time where I could fit it was worth it, but I know that I was a wreck, looking back. But again, that was the norm.

Then I left one position. The customer service position was no longer worth it, and I stopped it. But mentally, I was still used to functioning on that same level of activity. I won’t lie, I went a little stir crazy for a bit, trying to adjust back to having more than no free time (I was still working between 50 and 60 hours a week). I remember I would be at home, and I’d get the same rush of panic that I was supposed to be somewhere, and I would feel more panic when I could not locate what it was I was missing. I came a button push away from calling the place that I had quit, 2 weeks after my last shift, to make sure I hadn’t rescheduled myself. And that was weird to me, having to readjust to a less chaotic existence, after chaos had become regular.

My point in mentioning this, I guess, is not so much that you should or should not have a chaotic life. Some people I know NEED to be busy, they need to always be working towards something, building something, learning or teaching something, all-the-God-damn-time. I know people that can’t stop watching and following sports, people that are unable to stop reading, people that play and write and listen to and go watch music like it’s a crack addiction. I know a woman from college who is basically hooked on learning new languages. She’s up to like 12. All of these people are in a ridiculous pattern that they can’t easily get out of and can’t explain but it somehow works for them. And as long as what you’re doing and are used to doing, as long as that works for you, then by all means, keep on keeping on.

Just make sure that it works for you.

Just make sure that you haven’t fallen into your current pattern strictly out of perceived necessity. Sometimes we do things because we tell ourselves that there’s no other way, and it’s that we don’t want to change. Or that we just don’t know how, or don’t think we can. Don’t do that. Don’t get in the habit of something because it’s what you’re told to do, just because you don’t know what else you’d do. Take a look at the path as you’re walking down it. If you don’t like what you’re seeing on the path, you have options. Go back, walk off the path and make a better path, start running down the path to get through it faster, hell, you can just lie down and take a nap on the path. We never talk about naps as options, they exist. But realize your options while you have them, instead of just shrugging and going with the thing that seems to be already happening anyway.

Seriously though, check on your neighbors if you haven’t heard them in a while. Crazy shit Like that happens.