Security vs. Adventure

Is this a false dichotomy? Rock climbing is a perfect example. We spend a lot of time and energy (to say nothing of money) staying safe with ropes and harnesses and carabiners and other stuff so that we can do this essentially ridiculous but very fun thing -climb to the top of a vertical stack of rocks. Still with me? I'm about to go off on a tangent.

The past few months have been about wrapping myself in a security blanket. Creating that security blanket for myself was more than just a psychological, empowering nicety. It had to be done. I did small things like start locking the house. I did bigger things like getting myself back in the work force and starting to pay my own bills. I moved money so that meddling former-partners couldn't have access to it. I literally talked myself through every day, asking myself how, at the end of the day, was I safer and more secure than I had been that morning.

I'm still afraid a lot of the time. It's not quite all the time, any more, but close enough. But I'm also starting to realize that my life lacks adventure. Adventure of my own design, I mean.

Thanks to the intervention of a friend, I've made a huge leap in my healing process. I am so close to fully over this guy, you have no idea. Maybe someday it will be appropriate to tell you all the details, but for now just believe me when I tell you that I now believe that we are fundamentally incompatible.

But given this new state of affairs, hyper-vigilance about security is still -sort of- about him. What am I securing myself against? After all, I have the basic things in place. I am the hero of my own story. I no longer worry that the most interesting thing about me is him. But my story is too small, still.

It's time to do more than survive. It's time to think about thriving. While, you know, staying attached to the ropes and harnesses. I'm still me, after all ;)