Recently Marge Katherine over at Inside Out Cafe (the home of No Comfort Zone) took stock to see how far she’s come toward meeting her beginning-of-2012 goals. How about me? Have I been bold enough to thrust my snout beyond the edge of my comfort zone and sniff the strange breezes out in the wide wild world?
Well, yes and no. Life caught up with me, as it so often does, and elbowed me into spending an unexpectedly large amount of time propping up my mother so that, for now, she can go on living (pseudo) independently. I remind her to take her daily pills; I nag her into keeping her doctor’s appointments; we (my husband and I) pick up her prescriptions, buy her groceries, pay her bills…it doesn’t end. And taking charge of her life certainly puts me far, far outside my comfort zone; but it hardly counts as one of the goals I wanted to achieve for this year.
Beyond that? I’m learning to be thrifty myself, and more usefully, I’m involved in a couple of projects at church to extend what help we can to people who don’t have enough. My house is as much of a mess as ever, but the outdoors is doing pretty well. And as usual, I’m fat.
Best of all, I’m learning to write. Daily blogging helps; so do the weekly writing projects at Friday Fictioneers and the 100 Word Challenge – both of them exercises in concise, vivid storytelling. And at last, after way too many false starts – I’m an expert on how not to finish a novel – I’m bulldozing my way through inventing a world with its history and politics and economics, and telling the stories of people who live there and have problems that I think are interesting.
Visiting a world I made up out of my own head? Now, that’s a worthwhile trip beyond my comfort zone.
A Number of Things 
It does sound like you’re making progress. Baby steps count and sooner or later they add up. For me it seems like 1 step forward and 2 steps back most of the time!
Thank you! It’s hard to keep enough perspective on your own life to tell whether you’re going forward or backward, isn’t it?
It sounds pretty impressive to me!
Thank you! (I have the usual impulse to babble irritatingly about how I don’t deserve such a nice comment, but I won’t say it 😉 )
I think that is pretty impressive too. You are taking the time to do what is important to you.
And thank you too! Balancing what you want to get done and what you have to get done is the hard part, I think. At least for me.
It’s funny how the roles are reversed now as parents age. We are the care takers and our presence enriches their lives. Bravo to you for stepping up, stepping in and being the good person you are. There are some old folks who have no one to call on for help – your mom is blessed!
The cool thing is you are writing – fiction, stories, blog posts, comments and that’s something BIG.
Aw, thank you. It’s so helpful to get another person’s perspective!
So, all in all – I say you’re doing FANTASTIC! Thanks for the update on your progress and for being part of my blog family!
🙂
Wow, you are doing well. I’ve been totally knocked off course. Taking care of your mother isn’t easy. I know. Look after yourself too, it’s important.
Maybe one important outside-our-comfort-zones thing to learn is how easily unexpected events push our grand plans to one side!