Why Living on the Edge is Overrated
Distractions are everywhere. Things that steal our attention, take our focus from what is deserving. Distraction is like a mosquito on warm summer night. You think you’re enjoying the moment but it’s not until you’ve been stung you realize what just happened & that it’s too late to do anything about. People like me are easily distractable, always looking for something to “spark joy”. A Million Dollar Idea. The “thing” I’ve been searching for. Frankly, it’s exhausting and a draining waste of time, unrealized until it’s too late. I find this happens when I’m only tip-toeing on the edges of something & not really invested. It’s a superficial relationship with a hobby or a human. Over and over again I learn “The Edges” are distracting & living there is unfulfilling. The things that complete me are in the messy middle & they take work. I even wrote about it before. The middle to me is…
Adventure.
Physical activity.
Trying new things.
Real conversations, about real life.
And I know that there are only a few people who give me the feeling of completeness when we do these things together.
And they’re enough.
We all have our inner circle who offer this elusive completeness on some level. We all have the outer ring of acquaintances & friends we chit chat with, spend time with and whose company we enjoy. Then there’s the rest of the universe who live on the edges. There are people in the world who are gifted with the ability to pull those Edge people in. And they do it with such genuine interest & sincerity. I envy those people who get energy from those situations & have the gift of doing it in such a genuine way. My dad is one of those people, so was my Uncle Tom. My friend Jamie is that way, too. It’s something I’ve always admired about them. But it’s not me.
Recently I had a huge realization about how this shows up in life. It’s something I’ve recognized before but hadn’t felt as acutely as I did in this particular moment of trying on wedding dresses. Not me, but a friend. A best friend…two of them actually, but only one was the wedding dress try-er on-er…irrelevant. Anyway, there is one trying on the dresses & the other is being an amazing stylist to the one trying on the dresses. They exist in the most central, inner spots of the nucleus of those who are “my people”, far from the edges. They exist there with my husband and my son & our family. They exist there with just a few friends I've had for 30 years. They keep me from getting distracted by the things that don’t matter & make me, me. They’re my person(s).
As dresses were being tossed & swooned over, we had a chat with the owner of the boutique about how we knew each other, our friendship and this being our first venture into the search for TheOne. A dress, not a husband. He has been found.
The owner began to tell us how 3-4 people was the perfect number for a try on session. Don’t come by yourself because this is a special occasion & should be celebrated with others. n=1 never proves to be a reliable data set, but coming with 2-3 of your people is in the middle and the sweet spot. I didn’t realize how profound that statement was until you think about it in the context of your actual everyday life - well, at least my life.
She joked that a lot of “girls” come in with their mom & MIL and sisters and high school BBF1 BFF2 and sorority sisters and babysitter and therapist and trainer and the person whose dog they used to walk and…etc. The list goes on. You end up with an army of people who surround your edge. The bride gets overwhelmed by the number of people, styles and opinions. Nothing is intimate. Nothing is personal. Maybe you end up with a dress you don’t really love - which is exactly what happened to the owner & prompted her to open the store & run it the way she does.
In this moment, stylist friend sneaks in a witty comment like she always does & says…”I think as you get older, all those people just get rolled up into just a few friends.” My gosh is she right. The insight in that statement was beyond what I realized in the moment, but the more I think about it, the louder the truth rings. In your 20s you surround yourself with people on the edges. Strength in numbers, judge a general by the size of her army, girl gang…but later - it’s the people in the messy middle who provide all the strength, protection & back-up you could ever possibly need & there aren’t many people willing to go there with you. But dress try-er on-er and dress stylist have done it for me over and over.
They’ve chased my dog around the neighborhood when he escaped (multiple times), watched my son when we were in a bind, let me lay on their couch while I verbal vomited all the things going on in my life that I needed advice on, drank too much wine with, held daily workout sessions with, had way too much fun with, vacationed with, cried with, snuck away for “just one” with, cooked with, given medical advice to & received from (btw - no one is a doctor). I seriously don't know where it ends. Maybe it doesn’t end and maybe that’s why they’re in the middle with my family. No, they’re in the middle as my family.
They & the other middle-dwellers have quite literally checked every box of every person who could play any role in my life. But I guess that’s what happens when you get “older”. You break away from the masses that live on the edges so you can get to the center of who you are without distraction.