Getting comfortable with discomfort

Sometimes it is easy to forget the wins and focus on the negative instead. Sometimes I get caught up in my head, caught up in the things I have failed at, failed to be. I forget the positives. I focus on this intangible feeling that seems to follow me around. The one that says I don't quite fit anywhere. Not really. I didn't fit in the place I was from, so I left. I moved across the country and felt even more "square peg, round hole" than ever. I am a progressive in the most conservative province in the country. I never quite fit anyone else's definition of who I should be, and sometimes it grates like sandpaper on sensitive skin. I am confident in who I am, but not confident in how other people see me. It's just a feeling, and it might not even be true. But it is the feeling that I live with. And location doesn't change who you are. So yes, where I am might be a bad fit, but I'm not sure I could shake the feeling if I lived somewhere else. 

Despite how that started, this is not a negative post, and this is not meant to be a negative blog. I'm honestly not sure of my intention, besides having somewhere to create and share this side of me. Because even with the general discomfort, I feel like I might be starting something. This year has been interesting. Lots of loss, failures, defeats. And lots of wins right alongside. I got a new job. Healthcare, not retail. I started bouldering. Now I am literally climbing the walls in my path.

Mostly, I started focusing on creating pockets of joy for myself. I remembered something important about myself that I might not be able to put into words. I stopped listening to my anxieties so much and started putting myself in uncomfortable, imperfect situations intentionally. For months, I have been beating myself up for falling down a mountain, forgetting that I also hiked it. And people fall down all the time in all kinds of ways. And get back up and walk out. And learn from the damn experience so they can do it better next time. 

So I'm doing more uncomfortable things. I went on a trip that I was literally terrified to try, having a mini panic attack on the plane. And guess what? I had the time of my life. It wasn't totally perfect, but life never truly is. I still felt like I stuck out like a bit of a black sheep, but it was incredible and I met amazing people. I went camping in the Icefields and explored a glacier for Thanksgiving. I have winter camping, backpacking, and ice climbing trips coming up soon. I am taking my first university course in a decade (online this time) next month to try to engage my brain in a different way. I am trying. I am not lying down and letting people walk all over me anymore. 

I am not perfect. I will struggle. I will fail. I will charge in head first with absolutely no plan, because that is who I am. When I was 3, I face planted off the back of my dad's truck because I was trying to fly. I am still that girl, just with more life behind her. I will still have anxiety. I will panic and mess up. People will not always like me. There will be rejection, and it will hurt. But it's life. And you have to find your joy where you can, and learn something along the way. 

At least that is how I'm feeling today.