life lessons in setting boundaries

I have spent so much of my life living in the shadows of fear. A lot of my more transformative years have been spent pushing back against fear. Saying yes more. Going outside of my comfort zone, and still recognizing that being uncomfortable is one of the best feelings in the world. Pushing the boundaries of the worlds we build for ourselves in our heads is necessary to achieve our ultimate goals and our big dreams. Discomfort is necessary to find our purpose and make our path that we are trying to carve out for ourselves in this big scary world.

Boundaries are important. From infancy, we are always testing, testing, testing, seeing how far we can go. We go from being completely, 100% dependent on our parents to slowly earning our own small forms of independence. Then, all of a sudden, we are kicked out of the nest we have spent our most innocent years changing and growing in. The shock of early adulthood, being 18 and freshly moved into my college dorm 1,000 miles from the comfort and familiarity of home and anyone that really knew me is still fresh in my mind. The color I injected into my side of the room lifted my outward spirits, but inside I was floundering. The anxiety of young adulthood and I did not mesh well together.

What's going to happen when you encounter discomfort?

Will you stare blankly at it like a deer in headlights, frozen in the moment of Shit, what do I do? Will you run from it and pull the blanket over your eyes? Or will you put your game face on and run straight toward the thing that makes you uncomfortable?

All of the major traumas in my life can be encompassed by these three scenarios.

I was the deer in headlights, staring blankly at the nothingness in front of me. Sitting in a little pup tent, staring into the darkness, weighed down by the decision between right and wrong. I was fourteen and understood nothing. I ran out of that tent leaving shreds of my innocence behind. Those moments of indecision, of me sitting there inside my own head battling with myself over right and wrong, are ones that still haunt me eleven years later.

Pulling the blanket over my eyes is what I did when my dad told me he had cancer. I naively believed him when he told me everything would be fine. He was my dad... He wasn't supposed to lie to me to spare my feelings. At least not when it was literally life or death we were talking about. I chose to pull the blanket over my eyes and not question him, so I can't resent him now for his one last fatherly act of protection.

Running toward the things that make me uncomfortable started as exercise in telling my anxiety to fuck the hell off. At first, it was simple things like getting dressed in something other than pajamas and actually leaving the house. Making sure I drink more than just coffee all day. It turned into accepting invitations to hang out with my friends more. Saying yes to adventures instead of staying inside to wallow in my own self-pity. The healthy things. These were good for me.

The not so good for me decisions revolved around boys and sex and the irresistible pull of power and control. In all my life, before Justin, no one had ever taught me the importance of sex in a relationship. Sex as a means of growing closer and as a means of true intimacy with your partner. No one had ever taught me the gravity of love and connection and chemistry in relation to a healthy sex life. All of my basic information was covered in Mr. Block's 8th grade sex ed class, accompanied by the ever popular "Scrotum Song" that I still remember the words to. But I never learned how to connect the physical and the emotional aspects into something that is supposed to be beautiful.

Boundaries in relationships are the most important things to set. I entered simultaneously into a relationship that had boundaries completely defined by the other person, and into one where those boundaries of friendship crossed muddy waters into the "Will we or won't we?" battle when it came to an actual relationship. Both scenarios, running straight into my discomfort, eventually led me back to the deer in headlights. But this time I was asking different questions. This time, it was "What the hell is wrong with me?" instead of "What do I do?" The strict set of rules to follow on one spectrum, and the on again off again nature of trying to make a 5 year friendship into something more was too much for me to handle.

Learning how to set boundaries is hard. Looking back on your past mistakes and saying, "Okay, now I'm drawing a line there so that doesn't happen again," is one of the most liberating things I've ever done. It's letting go and wrapping yourself with grace all at once. There are always bumps in the learning process. What you let go of sometimes comes back to you—even if you don't want it anymore. Those instances are especially where you need to either set boundaries or remove yourself from the situation entirely. Honing in on those judgement calls is a lesson that I'm learning never really gets any simpler. But slowly, slowly, drawing a line in the sand and learning not to cross it becomes easier and easier.