Not BOOGA-BOOGA pants-crapping scared, where your skin crinkles up and makes little screeching noises with sparklers on the ends. More like what are you AFRAID of … that fundamental sense of dread that a cog will drop into a random sprocket somewhere and life will change. Fear of loss is a keen motivator — what else drives us with that same force?
But what if life changed and you lived through it? And what if that happened over and over ’til you realized how brave you were and then you just started doing things and saying things you didn’t know you could do and say? What if people didn’t get any of that at all and you didn’t care? What if you just started kicking ass, including your own, and life really did change and you wouldn’t change it back if you had the chance? WHAT IF? Not the question I want to be asking myself when I’m gearing up for the choir eternal. What if I’d done all those things I knew I could do? What if I’d let myself be who I knew I was? And to quote Captain Obvious, what if I’d just been nicer? Regret, let’s not go there.
Holy balls, I’ve survived too long to let fear force me back into the box, and by now he’s like an old friend anyway, sort of. You know, keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your powder dry.
“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.” ~Dawna Markova
Joy Patton
Dec 08, 2014 @ 11:33:15
I kinda want to tell you what scares me, but I don’t want to tell everyone who reads your blog. It’s like the more people you tell, the more real it gets. It doesn’t keep me up at night, so I guess I’ll just ignore it 🙂
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Judy Smith
Dec 08, 2014 @ 15:21:12
Strictly rhetorical, and I agree — the more you talk about it the bigger it gets. Well, with some things. But anyway, sometimes I surprise myself by naming a fear in order to kick it to the curb. Ignoring is good, too.
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Carrie Rubin
Dec 08, 2014 @ 09:44:50
Yes, yes, and yes. Life is too short to let fear dictate it, and yet it’s so difficult to let it go. Love that last quote. Everything in moderation, right? 🙂
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Judy Smith
Dec 08, 2014 @ 10:03:24
Right. Except love. Can’t have, do, give, spread too much of that.
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Carrie Rubin
Dec 08, 2014 @ 10:22:34
Exactly. 🙂
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