Day 5 ::   Something you hope to do in your life

I could write a long list of the places I want to travel to, the beauty I want to witness first hand or I could describe all the dreams that have already come true and the list of dreams that still beat in my heart or the goals that I am right now working on accomplishing.

But there is something that I have hoped to do for most of my life.  I have hoped to live without the constant overpowering fear that keeps me riddled with insecurity.  And I am not talking about the little bits of nervousness that can happen when you do something new.  I am talking about the fear that grips you so badly that you can’t leave the house (and yes this happened to me on more than one occasion and for well over a month when I was in my first year of university).  I am talking about the fear that results in panic attacks and the endless cycle of self conscious insecurity that bleeds into every single part of your life.  I am talking about a lack of ease just doing the regular living that has you talking yourself into the leaving the house each and every day. 

If you know me, you likely don’t see it because you would have to look really hard through the defenses I have built up over the course of my life.  You might say that I am outgoing and kind and always there with a helpful hand and you would be right.  I am always there because I am overly sensitive to my environment and so I notice it all, I notice how the tips of your ears turn red when you give a speech or how your voice quavers on certain words.  I notice when there is strain in your voice or around your eyes, I see the cues and I always want to rush to help you.  I feel your emotions coming at me and hitting me and I take them on and I want to help.  The problem is that I usually always act on the impulse to help and end up giving so much more to everyone around me and I am left over here in the corner.  Alone in my insecurity because someone who gives so much couldn’t possibly need anything.  Right? Possibly but not necessarily.

I have lived with a nervous energy of insecurity and fear for pretty much my entire life.  My mom would say that when I was very very young (before I started school), I was a bold confident fearless girl who would walk up to complete strangers and ask them questions and yammer on about my life.  But the circumstances of my life changed me and I become that person who struggled with her fear and I was scared of literally everything and I see how it prevented me from doing so many things while at the same time guided me to close my eyes and leap into so many things. 

I was brave for a very long time.  I was incredibly brave for the past two decades because I was terrified to leave my small town and move to the capital city where I knew no one.  University terrified me so bad that I would wake up every morning and talk myself into going.  Brave but still very insecure and my work reviews always ended with the statement that I needed more confidence.  Friends ask why do you make yourself so small?  How could I possibly explain the almost dibilitating neurosis that lived under my skin especially when I had worked so hard to hide it all and people can hear the words, they can hear that about the things that have happened in your life and its like reading a book, you don’t really fully understand even if you can empathize. 

How to explain that yes I am incredibly intelligent and easily obtained honours at school and yes I am talented and have a unique and creative vision and perspective but these things never gave me confidence because inside I was still the girl that was beaten down, raped and lost holding up her dirty fingernails and hiding behind her hippy clothes.   How to explain that I always felt like the little sad faced girl mocked for wearing the wrong clothes, scorned for being a dirty indian, disregarded as being poor and looked down upon for being a burn out druggie chick.  I always felt like I was standing on the fringes of life looking in through the distortion of the fishtank watching myself through the lens of a camera, the words of an unwritten book.

I forced myself to do things that had me shaking in my boots beyond the everyday fears.  I jumped out of an airplane and experienced so much crazy beauty.  I volunteered to do things I didn’t even think I could do, like make a movie and write a play that was produced.  I learned to lean into the fear and do things.  I never let my fear slow me down.  But living with it has been exhausting.  Exhausting.

But something has been building for a long time.  I worked my way through the depression of loss and actually thought I was myself again.  Then a series of events happened starting this spring that sent me spiraling.  I put one foot in front of the other and did what I needed to do each and every day.  I was barely hanging on when I was handed a further insult and I lost it and I stopped caring what people around me thought, stopped worrying how other saw me and I started doing things that I wanted to do.  I volunteered with a homeless initiative.  I built a patio and painted my house trim a bright green.  I fully engaged at work.  I put in sweat and concentration.  I worked really really hard and forgot about myself for a while.  And then again something happened that sent me spiraling.  I put one foot in front of the other and did what I needed to do for me.  I became a little bit selfish and really examined what I needed and I started giving to myself.  Really giving to myself and only doing the things that I really wanted to do not because other people might need me to do them, not because I was trying to hide my fear and insecurities. 

And last night I had a huge realization.

As we crawled into the dark warmth of our bed and curled into each other and mumbled quietly, I started to attempt to express what happened to me this summer.  I explained to my love how so many people have emailed me this week telling me how brave I am and how I didn’t actually feel brave at all because I seem to have lost the fear that has been a constant source of my being, how I seem to have cracked through something but I couldn’t explain it.  And how though it really began this summer, I am seeing the effects in my daily life in the way I interact with people; in my career and in my creative work. 

I love how my husband described it, he said I broke through the dirt and now that I am in the light, growing will be so much easier.

day 5 truth:  Something I hope to do in my life is to live, to keep living with this new found confidence and belief in myself.  I hope to keep growing and watering my tender green shoots.

’30 days of truth’