living on the edge

living on the edge

Living on the Edge

Rock climbing, bungee jumping and eating fried green tomatoes all have one thing in common for me. They are all out of my comfort zone. They put me on the edge where I don’t feel confident. That doesn’t stop me from trying them though. This is because of my basic principle: I believe in eating fried green tomatoes.
This belief was instilled in me as a young child. Every night my mom would sit me down at the dinner table and tell me that I had to try everything she made at least once. I didn’t have to like it but I had to eat some of it. Sometimes this meant sitting at the table all night. Luckily, my mom is an amazing cook, but there were some questionable items of food over the years that I was scared to try. One of those foods was fried green tomatoes. The smell alone was enough for me to keep them at the other end of the dinner table. The actual taste was beyond describing. Those were just plain out nasty but I had no choice over whether I ate it or not.
Life is somewhat like those dinners. You have your comfort foods that you depend on that symbolize your normal life. Then you have the new and exotic foods, “the fried green tomatoes,” that symbolize the new challenges and opportunities you have in life. Sometimes you are scared to try these new “foods” but that shouldn’t hold you back. Every day I try to face life head on because I know there is no way out. You need to face your problems, even if there isn’t a nagging mother there to make sure you “ate it”.
Living like this isn’t always the easiest for me because I don’t always want to break out of the “norm” and try something new or face something difficult. It is hard but it is also rewarding. Years ago, I remember my mom literally dragging me to my first field hockey practice. I kicked, screamed and cried that I was a “soccer girl” and that I would hate it. Six years later, I am still playing field hockey and it has become one of my favorite sports.   Trying something new requires...