Last week my family and I spent the day down on Coronado. With clear skies and temperatures in the 70s, it was hard to believe it was actually winter. It was nice to just sit in the sun (with SPF applied twice, rest assured), have pizza delivered to the beach (!!), and just be around good company.
But let me be honest; for as beautiful and sunny as it was, it was not easy. When my sister text me that morning asking if I wanted to come hang out, my immediate response was a decisive "no." But the more I thought about it, the more I told myself that I probably should go. Not just to be with my family, but to not avoid situations simply because they're uncomfortable for me. So I went. There were enjoyable moments, and there were moments when I felt like, okay, I've been out and around people long enough, I'm ready to go now. Only to look around and see that everyone else was having a good time and was most certainly not ready to go yet, and not wanting to say anything for fear of being the fun sponge. It's a trapped feeling. My sister was kind enough to let me sneak off to her room to get away from everything and recharge somewhere quiet for awhile. Imagine having to take a break because the beach is too stressful, haha. But that's just how life is right now, a mixture of having a good time and being overwhelmed, the wanting to stay and wanting to go, and trying to enjoy things, even if it means sometimes having to go off to decompress in the middle of it.
xx
Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honour, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. When her flood of prosperity ebbs, she finds treasures hid in the sands; and when her sun of delight goes down, she turns her telescope of hope to the starry promises of heaven.C.H. Spurgeon
Good for you for going! I just read a book called "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years." It was really interesting - it talked about living your life like a story. It made me realize I need to get out of my comfort zone and do things that require money (!!!) and be more spontaneous (with a kid? WTF?). So we went to SF last weekend and it sucked. But we did it. In the book, he talks about even though it sucks at the moment, there's a chance you'll look back on it in the future and say you had a good time and that you were glad you did this/that. I don't know. He might be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI totally believe that. Sometimes when I don't want to do something, I just tell myself, "do it for the story, do it for the story" because I feel like my life has had zero excitement in it up to this point. To write about or to have interesting things to talk about. Most of the time, I don't enjoy things while I'm doing them and spend a lot of my time thinking, when is this going to be over so I can just go home? But in hindsight, I'm almost always glad that I went and can say I did it. I don't know if it's because our brains just like to block out negative things and make things seem better than they were, or if it just takes some time to realize the good parts. I'm glad you went to SF even if it did suck. I'm sure in a couple weeks you'll look back on it fondly :)
DeleteTravelling with the family is the interesting and happy journey though there are annoying and anxious things during the trip.
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