My life has been about fear....when I was young...fear was inflicted by others...it was random...coming at all and any time...brief...long...swift...dragging on...Fear caused me to grow up much faster than I should have...and then it followed me throughout my teens and into adulthood...
Fear caused me to say yes when I knew there would be regret...Fear caused me to say no when I knew there would be regret...Fear caused me to lie when I needed to...and when I didn't....Fear was my constant...my rock...I could always count on it being there.
Fear kept my eyes to the ground when they should have been looking up...Fear kept my eyes wide shut...Fear kept me from hearing the things that I needed...and made me hear things that weren't said. Fear pushed my hands in directions that I didn't want to go and to do things that I didn't have the courage to do.
Fear was my mother...my father...my sisters...my family...my loves...my losses...and my gains. Nothing looks the same through the eyes of fear that it does to others...who are not afraid. Fear rocked me to sleep and kept me awake. It had me crawling...bloody kneed...crying....It caused me to stand stock still and wait for the storms to pass...it moved my feet to run as fast as I could....and it would still catch me.
But, the things that I feared the most were the things that always seemed to loom in the distance...the could be's...the what if's....and then they happened...they've all happened...and there was nothing left...to fear. I was too tired...too exhausted...too worn down...it was too much...
Then I slept...a deep sleep that I have never slept before....my tired bones relaxed...my hair fell down around my shoulders...the lines of my face softened...my lips loosened and my teeth stopped grinding...and I could breath...deeply....
Now...things are beginning to shift...I can see the landscape moving past me...the wind in my face...and through my hair...the crispness of the air and the burning sun on my face as I look up and forward...my feet are moving faster....arms outstretched...hands open...palms faced upwards....I cannot stop....I don't want to....Someone wonderful told me there was a fine line between fear and excitement....
I will never go back to fear...I'm afraid...
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