Fear of the unknown

I have 4,474 unread messages in my inbox. I know this because my new iPhone (!) tells me so. I don’t bother clearing my inbox anymore because I get almost zero personal emails these days. They’re almost all subscriptions, reminders, or promotions, so there’s no reason to obsessively go through them every couple of hours, or even every day, to make sure I’m not missing anything important.

Instead, I just skim the subject lines down to the last time I checked, see if anything interests me to star for later reading and close Gmail to write, read, or go Facebooking. Sometimes, I even turn off the gadgets and go outside. This is the luxury of no longer having clients or a boss to answer to.

When a personal email does arrive, it comes as a bit of a shock, the way a handwritten letter makes your heart skip a beat when you’re expecting to find a mailbox full of the usual impersonal bills, magazines, and catalogs. Then you open it and realize it’s an invitation. Oh, no! I might have to go somewhere I’ve never been to meet someone I don’t know!

That’s what I thought when I read an email from Lois Middleton last week. Lois had commented on the blog several times and had been to last winter’s RTR, but I didn’t remember meeting her. She was inviting me to go camping with her for a couple of days in Pine Valley.

There were a lot of anxiety-triggering unknowns here:

1. I’d probably never met Lois in person.
2. I’d never camped in Pine Valley and didn’t know if that was even allowed there.
3. I’d been putting off going to or calling the Ranger station in Alpine to get more information because, well, it was an unknown.

I feel these little fears all the time

They’re so constant, in fact, that I’m not even aware of them in the background — until I’m forced by a friendly invitation, say, to make a decision: either face the fear or come up with a lame excuse.

My first instinct was to go with the excuse. But then I reminded myself that I am a vandweller now, and I chose this life to push past my comfort zone. So I took a deep breath, replied with a yes, and hit send.

Now I am sitting in LaVanne on a chilly Monday night, planning to head back to San Diego in the morning, after a week of pure enjoyment. We walked and talked. We ate good food. We went into town for supplies and shopping. I have a new iPhone, a new haircut, and a new Senior Pass to National Forests and Parks. I know where the Alpine Ranger station is, I know where I can camp in Pine Valley, and will come back here often. And I have a new friend.

Thank you, Lois, for the invitation and the push.

Screw comfort zones

But heavens to Murgatroyd, people — don’t take this as an invitation to push. I can only take so much!