When coffee can’t solve your problems, call on confidence

When my plane landed in Philadelphia 3 weeks ago I felt like an entirely different person. I had been away from home for a while and I had to create a whole new life for myself while I was in California. I was in a sink or swim situation. When I arrived in California I didn’t know anyone and I knew nothing about my surroundings. I had to set aside my fears and my insecurities in order to thrive. All of the self-doubt I had washed away and I became very confident very quickly.

On the flight home I realized that I was no longer the person I was before I left who had a long list of insecurities. I realized that I was now the person I had became in California who challenged herself to confront her fears, stand up for herself, and try new things.

Now that I am home and I am wandering around in my regular life doing regular things I find myself clinging to the confidence that I found this summer.

My regular life was waiting for me the moment I walked through my front door. My mail was waiting for me, the dirty stove was waiting for me, I had laundry to do, people to see, emails to send, work that needed to get done, and responsibilities that had seemingly lapsed while I was away. As much as I tried to stay on top of the important things while I was gone there were many things I couldn’t handle from the other side of the country, and many things that I didn’t want to deal with when I was on the other side of the country. But now…..now I am home….and all of these things are here.

My life at home is good. I love my life. I love my family, my cats, my friends, my town, and my house. I have very little to complain about. I have 39 coffee mugs and 2 pairs of new running shoes. I never seem to have a problem finding work even though I don’t exactly have a job at the moment….you figure that one out, and I, the plant killer, have managed to keep pumpkin sprouts alive in my back yard for the last few weeks.

My life is exceptional in so many ways and I am so happy to be home, it’s jut that being home has been nothing less than overwhelming and exhausting. A lot of my irrational fears and insecurities vanished while I was away. Being away from home forced me to deal with challenges and I prospered. In a way, being away from home was also exceptional. Despite how confident and unstoppable I feel, being home has been challenging.

It isn’t easy to tell people in your everyday environment to back off, to leave you alone, that you really don’t want to do the thing they want you to do, or that you really don’t want to help them with what they need your help with. Has anyone else noticed how incredibly challenging it can be to deal with people who are so intertwined in your life? These are the kinds of situations that I have been faced with since I’ve returned home. It is exhausting! I have been fighting battles that I should have fought a long time ago. I’ve been too nice for too long. So here I am. I may not have been strong enough to address certain problems when they originally surfaced, but I am now.

I came home ready to take control. I’ve always believed that most problems can be solved with a large cup of coffee. Since I’ve been home I’ve learned that for the problems that coffee can’t solve, you call on confidence. Coffee tastes better with confidence.

Since I’ve been home I have not cowered and I have not allowed people to tear me down. It is sometimes a battle to stand tall in stressful and challenging situations or when dealing with difficult people, but lately I have won these battles. I have let situations get out of control over the years and I have let people, incredibly difficult people, infiltrate my life for far too long. As much as I believed that all of this would go away because I went away I was wrong. It was all here waiting for me to come back, just like the mail and the dirty stove. Problems and conflicts never go away until you solve them. I had to spend the summer on the other side of the country to learn that. 

And so, as I stepped knee deep back into my regular life filled with regular things and regular responsibilities, I took my newly acquired confidence with me and I have been wearing it like a badge of honor.