My sister-in-law sent me this article about a month ago. I read it and had to go sit quietly for a while. A good long while, actually, sort of staring into space as if someone had just shaken me a little too hard, looked a little too closely at me, peered into the depths of my soul uninvited, and stayed just a little too long. This line kept screaming at me from the page, “I do remember flashes of wondering if I’d always be too afraid to let myself be truly seen and known.”
Coincidentally, this photo showed up in my feed today. I took it exactly ten years ago, on July 19, 2008, after a particularly bad argument with my then-husband. I couldn’t sleep so I left the house at 4:00 AM and drove out to the coast of Maine and walked up and down the shoreline of York Beach until the sun came up. I dipped my toes in the surf, still cold even in July, and knew then that the unraveling had begun. I also knew that I didn’t have the strength to hold it back any longer. And I was so very afraid.
I lived inside of that fear for many more years; afraid to cause a disruption, afraid of the truth, afraid of the lies, afraid of turning back, afraid of moving forward, afraid of being wrong, afraid of being right, afraid of being a bad person, or thought a bad person, afraid of being misunderstood, afraid of making more mistakes, of not being forgiven, of not being pretty enough, or thin enough, or fast enough, or smart enough, of missing an opportunity, of making another bad decision, of not being loved, of not being lovable, of being more lonely than I already was, of being alone.
Life got heavy carrying all that fear around. Impossibly heavy. And decisions got impaired. I woke up and my daily existence didn’t bear any resemblance to my joyful self. I was lost and my delight in the world was dim.
And that’s how it was for me, until eight years later, I found myself on a different shoreline on a jetty that stretched deep into the sea off the coast of Barcelona. And I whispered to myself, “You’re 3500 miles from home and you carried this all the way with you. Aren’t you tired of being afraid? Just let the fear unravel. Let it go. It’s time.” Six months after that, in the wake of a storm that battered the Florida shoreline, I stood on Amelia Island and watched the unraveling exhaust itself. I put it down, dropped it shriveled in the sand, and never looked back. The fear left my body, the fatigue lifted, I smiled into the surf, baptized by the salt water, my hair thick with sea air, and I knew I was home again.
And at this homecoming, I’m all in. I will dance with you. I will drink with you. I will laugh with you and talk with you and listen to you and care about you. I will see you—all of you—and I will acknowledge you and I will be 100% of myself with you without any fear. I’m all in on me, I’m all in on you, and all in on this life. I’ve already missed so much sidelined by fear and regret.
I’ve lost the sense of self-betrayal that nagged at me living a life compromised by fear. I’ve won peace through honesty, compassion, and simply being myself. There are still times and situations in which I am fearful, but I know how to cope. I just put the fear aside and press on. I see and know myself, and flashes of brilliance and wonder abound. I’m all in. Let’s go.