Fear is a mirror in front of you and a mirror behind you.
When I moved out of my last apartment (where I lived, alone, for 2 years), the hardest part, by far, was packing up my stuff. It wasn’t a particularly big one-bedroom, but whenever I looked around, it simply felt like too big a task. How can I, by myself, pack all of my stuff into boxes? I’ve never done this without at least the help of my mom and my sister; I’m just one person, and the box I’m in is so much bigger than me. Two weeks out, I hadn’t packed a thing, and I remember sitting on the floor of my living room, head in my hands, frozen with anxiety.
Enter my best friend Ric. Ric is a large and charismatic man, who had his own key. Ric asked me what was wrong, and when I told him I had no idea how I could get all the packing done in time, he laughed, went out to his truck, and returned with a cardboard box. He pointed to a shelf.
“See that shelf? Pack up all those books and video games.”
I packed up the box, and the moment I began moving and quit thinking, the fear was, if not gone, certainly deflated. I could see the strings! This is what I was afraid of? Of course I can pack, there are days to go. Everything will be okay, as long as I don’t just keep sitting there afraid.
To many people, this may seem obvious, but to me it was a revelation! All I have to do is shrink my problem to a size I can deal with, and then deal with it in manageable bites. One box. One day at a time. One foot in front of the other.
I have spent a lot of time afraid. Trapped in anxiety, sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a month. I have lost so many days to the idea that no one will want to hear what I have to say.
There’s a reason a lion roars before he tries to eat you. Fear will freeze you in place, bolt your shoes to the floor when you want to run, make you run when you ought to fight.
A chemical reaction.
Instantaneous.
Jolting.
I have often found myself caught in a loop where everything makes everything worse. I know I am not alone.
I have “set” a lot of goals for myself by saying, “starting tomorrow, I’ll ________” and it’s pretty much a sure thing that whatever I say will not happen. It’s a way of acknowledging the problem I have without ever acting on it.
No more. It's time to get up off the mat and try something, try everything.
Seriously, make something!
Today, I went to the store, bought copper wire and pliers, and made something. I'd never tried anything like this before, which only made it more exciting to try, but there's so much more I want to do.
Someone I respect immensely told me to write down everything I wanted to do in my life, and when I wrote down the thing that made me sob uncontrollably, that's the thing I'm meant to do.
I want to tell you stories, to share my thoughts.
I want to examine fear and love, and any moment we can get lost in together.
As I wrote, before I found The Thing, the thing that I found so empowering was that looking at it on paper, all i had to do was change "want to" to "can" and suddenly, rather than a list of dreams or wishes, it was almost a resume of a million futures I could build for myself.
I can find an audience, find people who feel the way I do and talk to me.
I can find new adventures, meet people, try something new and smile every day.
I can be heard.
And so can you.