Feels like fireworks; sounds like a battlefield.

I’m outside of my comfort zone.

I’m not a worrier, I don’t tend to doubt my convictions once I’ve had them, and I’m normally reasonably articulate about my choices.

Right now, not so.

Right now everything is terrifying. I get an adrenaline rush from all the thoughts buzzing in my head during the time it takes to clean my teeth. The tension in my back and shoulders commands I stop half-way up the stairs to stretch and try to feel normal.

My brain, body and environment all feel out of sync.

Now I’ve made the choices I have, I need to leap up and prove something. But first I need to stop and relax. If I carry on with my brain as active as it currently is I’m going to go crazy.

This counter-intuitive reality is the result of too many months sauntering along a line perpendicular to where I wanted to go, doing things that weren’t right for me. When the Noph, who has known me since I was three, told me she’d never seen me so livid before, I knew something was wrong. I’m not normally an angry person. I don’t normally feel so helpless.

I’d made a mess of the basics.

And it’s been having a negative effect on those around me. I’m so wound up in my own dilemmas that I’m making a disastrous friend. Self-obsessed doesn’t even begin to describe it. My thoughts are like fireworks. I’m struggling to explain the sparks to my family. I see something wondrous, and they’re hearing a battlefield.

When we’re outside our comfort zone we behave erratically. Hands sweat, voices wobble and we panic at the slightest threat.

Just past the line of comfort is where we become more than we are. It’s where we grow.

And recently, I haven’t been there enough.