The Pilgrims and the Pioneers

I needed this.

This change, I needed it badly.

And I knew it.

For a long time.

And I fought the very thing I needed while I was pushing myself to make it happen.

Anyone in my age bracket will remember the old Doctor Doolittle movie with Rex Harrison. In that movie there was an animal called "Pushmi-pullu" (Yes, Push Me - Pull U).  In essence, I was doing this to myself...

...trying to get somewhere while tethered to all "they" wanted and wanted me to be. But this story isn't about them. They did me a great service by making my chain so small and refusing to acknowledge that I'd outgrown my cage. I was stuck in the very small world I'd created for myself and needed to move on. Like anything else in life... the idea is easy. The details to do it right take some time, a lot of planning and a huge amount of energy and persistance.

Imagine the energy it takes to move something BIG. An airplane, a cruise ship, etc. Now think of everything in your life and imagine how much energy it undo everything with minimal disruption to those around you. Seriously. Everything you do is linked to everyone you do it with. It's called "the Web" for a reason. Work, family, friends, church, other social clubs and groups... your bank, your doctor, your dentist, your hairdresser. Your decisions effect them, big or small, and I owed it to them to plan my exit in a way that gave everyone time to adjust along the way so we were all ready.

Now multiply that energy by 2.5 or 3 because as everyone who has undertaken a home remodel knows, the demolition is actually the easy and fun part. It goes very quickly and motivates you to finish cause it leaves a blank canvas behind. Of course, the real work is putting it all back together in the way you want it, on time and with as little disruption to those around you as possible.

Unlike a home remodel, big life changes like this one has to all be done at the exact same time your demolishing your current life You have to find a replacement for all those important things in a foreign place where you don't know anyone. You haven't established a tribe or a social base yet. You're alone in the forest without any guide, map or compass. Lost. Yes... scared but you can't let that stop you.

You just keep going... a new place to live and then another new place to live, a new doctor, dentist and a new hairdresser. (The latter almost being the hardest of the 3, right girls?) Everything is trial and error and most of the first assumptions you make are wrong so you have to spend more energy changing again and again until the pieces finally fit. Until you have enough new experience in this new place that you achieve "familiarity" and can make really good decisions quickly based on past experience.

As long as your moving, you don't really notice how uncomfortable you've become or how exhausted you are. You're so focused and overwhelmed that you just deal with one moment at a time. That's all you can manage. This task in this moment because to see anything beyond is just too much and you might just give up. It feels like a tsunami and if you stop running, it will drown you. If you try to deal with anything more than surviving this moment and then the next, the exhaustion and the fear of the unknown will catch up to you. So you avoid all that and just deal with right now.

Until the quiet time comes.

In the rare quiet moments when you're not making a decision or making something happen, in that very rare space that you take your breath and get a glimpse of how far you've come and how far you have to go... you stop, take a breath and reality sets in with a healthy dose of fear.

You've come an incredible way. A world away from where you were. Way, way too far away to turn back now and you know that "there" doesn't hold anything. It was uncomfortable when you left, it's not going to fit any better if you go back and you've already learned so much that it would be even smaller and ill fitting than when you left. Not to mention the disappointment you would have in yourself for giving up so soon. No, to go back would be pointless. You aren't that version of you anymore, "there" isn't the same version of "there" anymore. A lot like your first semester at college.  Your trip home at Christmas is a little familiar but still not the same because you're not the same person anymore. The more time away, the less familiar it seems. That's what they mean by "you can't go Home". Not that you physically can't return but it's never the same place as when you left.

All of that understanding makes it easy to just keep pushing forward but in those rare quiet moments all you have to focus on is the possibilities in front of you. No map, no direction. A vague idea of what you're heading into. All the options are there and with those options come the excitement and fear of knowing that you're recreating yourself and your future. In those rare quiet moments, you feel the gigantic enormity of what you've done and you allow yourself to start feeling it. Just for a moment because it can't take over and stall you in your journey. You can only indulge yourself for a minute and let yourself truly feel everything for a moment - joy, pride and excitement with a sobering side of fear.

It makes me think of the Pilgrim's leaving England for the great new world or the Pioneers opening the Western United States. Both were amazing and courageous groups of people but so very different in motivation and the levels of risk taking.

The Pilgrims were so miserable that they gave up everything for opportunity to do things their way.  They headed out to the great unknown without any understanding of what they were getting themselves into. They were fleeing something so uncomfortable, so miserable that it was preferable to be trapped on small ships, heading to remote and undiscovered places risking everything they had and knew to cross the ocean without a way home. When they got on the boat, they had to be committed to this change because there was no option for turning back. Whatever they head into, they were going to have to stay and live that way for the rest of their lives, regardless of what they found when they got there.

The Pioneers were different. The Pioneers knew there was a world to discover that would allow them the opportunity to strike out on the their own and discover their own fortunes.They had home bases in the East. Theoretically, they could return. Not easily but the option, albeit remote, was there. They knew the opportunities of a new, young country were there for the taking and while they didn't know what they were going to find along the way, they had a good idea of the basics they were going to need to take with them. Incredibly brave. An amazing choice in life to take off for adventures unknown.

I'm not as brave as either of those groups. We live in the 21st century. Nothing in this world is that daunting to be compared to what either group ventured or achieved.

What I am is uncomfortable,

in the way I need to be,

to grow in the way I need to,

while I discover for myself what is next

and what I'm truly capable of.

I needed this.