Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone[Weirddave]

We weekend bloggers are encouraged not to get too personal in our posts. I'm certainly not trying to put the spotlight on myself, but I do want to discuss an important concept, and I'm going to illustrate it with something I just experienced.

I am right smack dab in the heart of middle age. I'm 48 years old, and I realized recently that I had settled into a rut. A comfortable rut, to be sure, but a rut nonetheless. Career, wife, kids, family...it's all going swimmingly, but it is tediously the same day after day. I had an urge to do something to break out of my rut.

I suppose you might call it a “mid life crisis”, but the fact is there is no sense of crisis about any of this. I have no desire to bang a hot young chick, none of them could possibly compare to my lovely wife. I don't want a Ferrari (although it is kind of nice that I've reached a level of success in my career that I could probably swing one if I desired. A used one.), or to go sky diving (nervous about heights) or mountain climbing. I'm not in a position where I feel the need to be an adrenaline junky just to “feel alive”. I'm plenty alive, thank you very much, and I well know it. No, I just want something different.

With that in mind, last week I decided to pose nude for an art class at the local community college.

In spite of how it sounds, it wasn't a hasty decision. I know, it's an unlikely choice for an overweight middle aged man, but it was something that I had definitely never done before, moreover, it was something that was not in my comfort zone.

So last Friday I found myself in the Art department of Essex Community College. I had to undress in the bathroom, which was unnerving, but I had a robe to put on so it wasn't too bad. I stashed my clothes in a knapsack, and wearing nothing but my robe and an uneasy grin, I nervously approached the classroom. Inside, I could see the students already at their desks.

With a nervous gulp, I confidently threw open the door to the classroom and strode inside. Without meeting anybody's eye I strode to the front of the room, stepped up on to the platform that was there, took a deep breath, faced the class and dropped the robe to the floor. I had done it!

The campus police assured me that that was one pottery class that nobody would ever forget.

Open Thread

posted by Open Blogger at 07:37 PM

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