I am unflappable, even as I feel the fear coursing through my mind. I fear so much. I fear losing you, missing your presence in my life. I fear infirmity, and missing out on the life I long to live. I fear harm coming to those I love, and of the pain such loss destroying my soul.
I fear losing me, and in the fear I have forcing me to some bullshit sense of security that has never worked and likely never will. I fear falling apart when I’m needed most, and in not surrendering to the calling that echoes in my heart. I fear dying when I have so much life to live, and in not meeting the potential I see as my birthright. Yes, I feel that fear coursing through me, though it will never overwhelm who I am.
Mostly, I fear the bullshit that keeps me from who I want to be.
See, I am unflappable. I have been schooled in beating back the beasts within me. I have been taught to rise above you, and to only bend my knee when my spirit demands nothing less. I have been taught to let go, and have seen the wisdom of each piece of my heart as it fell broken to the earth below. I cannot go back, and I will not give an inch of the ground I’ve nearly died to climb.
I do understand your fear. I feel it too. I just master it. I do not let it commandeer my sense of joy, nor do I allow it to rule from the throne on which I should be sitting. I would rather crawl over rocks that make my world spin than surrender to the fear of falling. I would rather feel the joy of a mission completed with the blood and bruises of a warrior then succumb to the demons who lie to me every. single. day. I honor those wounds, and the scars they create, for I have survived the day they were inflicted.
For which purpose do we stand? To worship fear as our namesake or to defeat it in the spirit of self-love and discipline? Which choice do we make when our swollen feet hit the rocky sands? Which decision asserts our authority over self, never to abdicate it for the fears of the mind?
I’ve made my choice. See me stand in the face of fear, both yours and mine. Hear me growl in the muck of adversity and laugh as I play in the mud of time. Feel me embrace the heart that I hear beat within your craziness. Know me there, and do not paint me with a brush others have given you as the vestige of those who have betrayed you.
There is so much love past the bullshit, so much joy. Find me there.
Dayum.