Tales of a Terrified Lifestyle Designer
It’s a fierce restlessness that boils in your soul. It’s that same restlessness that scalds even the faintest symptoms of boredom, and takes cruel, sadistic pleasure in scorching anything that even mildly hints at routine. It’s been the catalyst of many unforgettable adventures, but it’s also been the source of many unforgettable heartaches; restlessness is not selective in choosing its victims, and too many times has callously incinerated the few relationships you’ve dared allow yourself in a foolish fit of selfish indulgence.
Sigh.
Yet, despite shortcomings & one too many bleary-eyed break-ups, you remain fairly confident that your restlessness has your best interest is at heart. You have a love/hate relationship, wrought with alternating bouts of fiery passion and relentless insecurity. You have occasional internal screaming matches against one another, and you often walk away wondering if this life is truly for you. But every time you’re close to abandoning it, perhaps in favor of a calmer relationship with comfort, safety or placidity, it comes running to your side, seducing you all over again, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, touching you in all of the right places, and promising that this time things will be different.
You fall for it every time.
You can’t resist the way it makes you feel. You’ve come to the conclusion that this will be a lifelong affair.
Courage, or something else?
Throughout the years, my own restlessness often has liked to play party tricks, stampeding around in an asinine royal blue cloak and fooling people into believing that it’s actually courage instead. Usually, it works.
“I wish I had your guts, Ashley,” they say.
Maybe you’ve heard these same words thrown your direction a few times as well. If you’ve got your own relationship with restlessness, it’s no doubt that you have. We often come across as extraordinarily ballsy and carefree, picking up and flying off to exotic places on a whim, finding ourselves engaged in new and exciting projects at a moment’s notice, and are not ones to be ever short on entertaining stories, one of which likely involves random porn producers we’ve shared seats with on airplanes, crack-addicted assailants we’ve chased down on foot to retrieve what’s rightfully ours, rare illnesses we’ve been tortured by and, by all means, the ubiquitous foreign love affair that goes without saying–with luck, no relation to the illness.
We have friends that are prostitutes, have secret handshakes with the town crazies in Latin America, Europe and Asia, don’t think anything of unrefrigerated cartons of milk, understand the protocol of dropping by the pharmacy to pay the phone bill, and someone, at some point, has tried to trick us into eating cow tongue. Knowing your type, you may have even accepted. Anthony Bourdain isn’t the only one with a set around here, you know.
On the surface, we appear to be a daringly courageous, unabashed, spunky bunch, to say the least, and many times in many instances, that’s exactly what we are–especially when hostels are involved. (It seems that I’ll be pleading the 5th a lot on here.)
“I wish I had your guts.”
If you’re reading this and you identify with any of what I’ve just said, there’s no doubt you’ve heard the phrase. I’ve probably heard it uttered most when people find out that I dare step foot into foreign countries alone. As if I having another 110 pound female with me would drastically improve my chances of survival. (Okay, so m
aybe I weigh a tad more than 110 pounds. Shut it.)
Every time I hear these words directed at me, two things immediately happen: One, my feathers get all fluffed up and perty, and two, I immediately think to myself, “Hmmm. I guess that takes guts.” I had never considered such activities to be scary. Bring on the naked gorilla safari, I say! Fluff, fluff.
But then, one day during a moment of clarity, it hit me: No matter how many naked gorilla safaris I embark on, how many prostitutes I befriend (it’s not as uncommon as you might think), or how many immigration officers I seduce, I am, in all actuality, very, very afraid. As a matter of fact, I’m terrified–just not of those things. What scares me to my core is something else, a bit more unconventional, yet significantly more terrifying.
What it comes down to is this: I don’t do the things I do because I’m some great warrior hero; rather, I do the things I do because my intense fear of mediocrity far outweighs any other possible fear. And sometimes, even that scares me–to think that a family of four and a golden retriever frighten me more than being bound, whipped and held for ransom without food for weeks prompts me to question several things, namely my wits. If nothing else, it can certainly lead to an intense psychological debate.
Am I irrational?
Am I a spoiled little brat who can’t face reality and simply just accept things as they are?
Am I truly rebelling against something unknown to me at present, locked deep inside my consciousness?
Why am I so restless?
More importantly, why isn’t everyone else?
. . . Is this freaking chocolate on my shirt?
This immediately prompts a quick-fire mental interrogation, in which I hold myself prisoner and made to answer questions by the brutal, inhumane force of an overactive mind. Maybe I just haven’t found that one special person yet, and if I did, maybe that’d be the missing link that would make me want to settle…want to embrace the family of four mould + retriever?
What’s even more puzzling is that this restlessness character does not keep it in the family; based on precedence, there shouldn’t be even a drop of adventure in my DNA. I grew up an only child with my mom, who might have been the most sensitive, book-reading, dirt-digging introvert to ever walk this earth. When I was 19 and told her I wanted to go abroad for the first time to learn Spanish, the intense look of sheer horror that spread across her face was fit for someone up against a fire squad. My mom wouldn’t even operate an automobile if there was even a chance for flurries, for fuck’s sake. Is it possible I’m an orphan? Worse, an alien?
Your Life is Meaningless
This theme dances around in my mind quite a bit, teasing my common sense and causing a dizzy whirl of thoughts. My restlessness characterizes me to the point of definition, where I would be rendered unrecognizable without it. And while I thrive on the next adventure it ensures me, I wonder what life on the other side of the fence is like at times. Are these people satisfied with their routines, their existences? Do they ever question whether or not there might be more out there? Do they ever feel guilty for not allowing themselves to experience it? Do they get bored, frustrated and disillusioned with the way their lives have turned out to be? Are they even aware there’s more to life? That there are other options?
Or are they simply content just to be?
Is ignorance bliss after all?
I will never be content to just be, and that’s what makes me nervous, yet grateful at the same time. I have no desire to play house and, you see, I would be drenched in guilt for even humoring that existence. Most people feel the exact opposite, and might feel irresponsible for living a life focused almost purely on the self, but in my mind, to remain in one little corner of the world is the selfish act. To not actively seek knowledge, to not desire to expand ones self as far as humanly possible and to not crave to understand the world and its vast possibilities is what’s irresponsible. One only has to look up at the sky on a clear day, and take in the utter profundity of nature, to realize that in the big picture, our lives don’t amount to much more than meaningless little specks of nothingness. The things we concern ourselves with, obsess about, cry over and argue in the name of are exceedingly petty, and do not matter in the long term, not for you and certainly not in terms of humanity. Yet, we spend all of our time and energy getting so tangled up in our own insignificant, trivial issues, that we struggle to see the big picture, and, as such, struggle to notice the value of it.
The world is a big, vast playground for you to explore, to run wild with and have a little fun.
And that’s exactly what I intend to do.
Truth be told, I always hated golden retrievers, anyway.
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Filed Under: Life Inspiration • Lifestyle Design • Philosophy, baby
About the Author: Ashley Ambirge is the sarcastic, brash, hot-sauce-addicted founder of The Middle Finger Project, where she gives the evil eye to mediocrity, fervently questions societal assumptions, and aims to inspire readers to flip a cordial bird to the shoulds, and live how they want.
Whiskey shots strictly optional.
