growth is comfortably uncomfortable
Growth is constantly getting out of your comfort zone, facing uncomfortable farewells and making uncomfortable decisions.
I, out of everyone, know best how to stick to my routine.
I always know I am bland, and I don’t think changes are good.
In my case, my food order has always looped in the same circle, everywhere and every time: Nasi Goreng Kampung and Teh ais cincau. Cut me in half, and that’s what you find inside of me. My favourite song, for as long as I could remember, is still Comedown by Luke Hemmings. I don’t like travelling, as I am eerily uncomfortable and not used to the idea of sleeping in another bed and putting my feet in an unfamiliar environment. And though it’s humiliating to admit it out loud, I couldn’t sleep well without my 16-year-old childhood plushie (that I couldn’t bring myself to name). I spent my whole primary and high school years believing that one day I would make a great doctor. Basketball is the only sport I am truly skilled in because I’ve spent the last thirteen years playing it. Don’t bother asking me for a duel in badminton, I screamed more times than the number of times I would return your shuttle. And at last, I once spent eleven years liking a guy, without expecting my feelings to be returned.
Today will be the last day I am 23 years old.
Looking back, I would say this year left me an invaluable lesson: growth is uncomfortable.
I completed my five-month internship as a solar engineer in Kuala Lumpur, next to KLCC, everyday breezing past a sea of humans in LRT Kelana Jaya, making a beeline in Bread History for breakfast and enduring the chaos of Kampung Baru for dinner.
Day in and day out, on my own.
Which is weird, because everyone knew I stuttered when I ordered my food and talked to strangers, clenching my fists awkwardly on the side of my body. Heck, I once passed out when I tutored other high school kids, too panicked when they shot me an Additional Mathematics question that I couldn’t answer well. Odd. Because back in my university, I couldn’t even go to the toilet without the company of my friends or cling to their arms and beg them to accompany me to buy dinner.
During my internship, my supervisor whom I called Miss Khai, once called out a bad habit of mine that liked to answer questions without giving them a second thought. It was one of the first uncomfortable talks I’ve had. This is a bad trait to own if I were to work as an engineer, probably risking my project and painting a bad impression on everyone around me.
Gradually, I changed. From mumbling the first thought to cross my mind, I will take some time to come up with a reasonable answer. In some way, it also calmed my nerves to prepare a good, reliable response.
Growth will always be uncomfortable, but it is inevitable.
Get Fatin Nadzirah’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
So are people. They inevitably come and go.
I’ve lost a few people, and I grieved over their absence. As mentioned, I disliked changes and adapting to a new routine. A routine without the familiarity of their warmth, now cold, along with the fondness that had disappeared. It felt strange to have good news, but I could no longer share my excitement with them, to spot Radiohead vinyls and could only muster to myself: ‘they would’ve loved those’, to act perfectly fine on my celebration days when their absence disturbed my fabricated peace.
Nobody warned me how painful a farewell could be.
But the worst part is nobody told me life goes on after they left. Especially, after they left. Like every other adult, I still need to go on; I learnt the hard way that I couldn’t stay in the past forever, holding onto the fragments where they used to be. No matter how much I tried to resist, my feet would propel me forward, facing a reality without them. Unsure, unjust.
I learnt that adults never truly get over grief, but they carry it forward in life. Not due to the lack of emotional capacity, but they weren’t provided with enough time and space to process their emotions. They were busy pretending it didn’t affect them, rowing in the ocean with a sinking ship. Until one day, the suppressed grief drowned them, and they burst.
Messily. Harshly. Suddenly.
Grief is messy, but the complexity is what makes us human. I don’t expect the grief in my heart to be healed over some period of time, but I do anticipate myself to be more at peace with my losses. More accepting, less questioning.
Take my dream as an example, am I sad that I didn’t fulfil my lifetime dream to be a doctor? Yes.
But have I come to terms with it? Definitely.
Then, come the uncomfortable decisions.
I was known for my impulsiveness.
I made a big decision this year, one that changed the trajectory of my life. If you ask me, how do I justify my action? It is impossible to explicitly reveal the reasoning, too personal to explain why, but I know just enough that this uncomfortableness is for my own growth. The good in my resolution couldn’t be seen in the next few months, but I would definitely thank my 23-year-old self in another five years.
There’s no guidebook for navigating through adulthood. Yet I do know that uncomfortable doesn’t necessarily mean me harm, and some good things will unintentionally do me no good.
Sometimes, I need to spin my heels in the opposite direction and leave. Sometimes, I have to embrace the fact that the most loving thing I could do for someone is to let them go.
