Comfort

We are sometimes gone from home for months at a time.  We love to travel, but we also love the comforts of home.  Sleeping in my own bed and taking a shower in my cozy bathroom are the things I miss most about our house when we’re away.

Sometimes, when I think about an upcoming trip, I want to back out.  A streak of fear enters my mind about all the unknowns, and keeps me awake at night.  The “what-ifs” seem endless and if I gave into the fear, I’d never leave the house.

I understand why some people don’t like to travel.  I think we are wired for comfort, and being out of one’s comfort zone causes stress.  Life is stressful enough.  I know a guy in North Dakota that has never driven on pavement because he’s only comfortable with dirt and gravel roads.  There are enough unpaved roads in that state that he can get wherever he wants to go, but he is scared to death to put the four wheels of his truck on a smooth surface.  But then again, he’s the same guy that bought the toilet bowl cleaner “2000 Flushes” and then complained when he flushed it down the first time that it didn’t come back up.

When we travel internationally, the anxiety really piles on, but I push forward with my plans anyway because I’m always happy with the end results.  We’ve even had a few “what ifs” happen in our travels, like having our passports stolen in Prague and Kory breaking his back at a waterpark in Denmark, but we got through them.  Someone once said that comedy is just tragedy plus time, and those things weren’t funny then, but we sure laugh about them now.

Taking the first step to overcoming any fear is always the hardest.  When I lamented my fears to Kory one day about a trip we were taking to the Greek Islands last fall and that we’d be “so far from home,” he said, “What do you mean?  Home is wherever we are.”  And I realized how true that is.  If my son and husband and I are together, that’s my real comfort zone.  It’s when we are separated that I really get knots in my stomach. 

Being in foreign places has its upsides too, as I love visiting other cultures and seeing how people do life outside of America.  I love the different architecture, trying to communicate with the natives, and eating local cuisine.  When we were in Greece, I thought about the fact that this place is home to these people and they are perfectly comfortable there, why can’t I be, too?  For the most part, I think, people feel safer when they are comfortable, so I talked myself into being comfortable – which wasn’t too hard since it was cold back home and we were in a warm climate with lots of sunshine.  Like I said, travel has its benefits, but still, there’s no place like home.