Comfort Zone

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I feel like a fool sometimes. They look at me and think "what great strength! She came all the way here from another place to live by herself! " But I'm just like all the others - living in my comfort zone surrounded by my friends in a place that I know. A place where I wake up every day and do the same thing - go to the same gym, the same mall, even the same places to eat (although they get dull sometimes). The same job Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. I too am scared to leave my comfort zone so I search for yet another job that I can do here - within my comfort zone. The strength and energy it takes to leave the zone is intense, tiring, sometimes overbearing. So I stay in the zone. Not hiding, for I've left the zone, I know what is outside. Unlike those who never leave I've seen past the rivers and streams. Maybe I can say I've seen enough to know what it takes, yet I still wish to remain here - in the place I know.

"She can speak so many languages!" They say. Yet what good are languages that can't be used? I could learn to speak a million languages, yet if I don't speak them I too lose them until I have no use for any of these skills that took years to develop. Maybe I'm better than thse who come to study for years and don't learn as much as I, for I can speak to the natives with ease. But what good is this speech to anyone except me? I know my stories, I will always know what they tell me, no matter what language they use but I am no writer. Only a poet of my own imagination for no one to hear but those who care.

One lady said "she is so young to teach!". Now that may be what I have - developing skills with kids. Skills to speak in front of a hundred kids when I used to be petrified to speak in front of a mere 20 on occasion. To command and conduct kids with our games as a concert conductor controls his band. To manipulate and trick minds, into learning the skills of a language even at a young age - or even when they do not wish to learn themselves. Maybe these are my skills. Yet some say "the pay will never support you."

Now where am I? Who am I but a foreigner stuck in a zone of comfort with a pointless job. Just like some mind numbing pencil pusher who has never left the south-side of Chicago.

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