But as I was saying, I live my life being scared. I feel like those meerkats in Lion King 1 1/2 always preparing for hyenas. I live my life preparing for chaos (but I’m not a doomsday enthusiast.) Chaos and I go pretty hand in hand, not always in the bad way. But I never thought of any of this as a mark of being fearless. I feel like I’ve lived half my life scared of messing up and the other half regretting doing the wrong thing. I’m not fearless. What they saw as fearless was my fear. I was always running from something: bad friends, stupid mistakes, and most often the versions of myself that I wanted to run away from. Do you know how often I’ve felt trapped in my own skin? It clings tight like shrink-wrap. Often, I’ve wanted to cut it off. Some days I tried to cut it off. I am not fearless.
Through college, I contemplated this word fearless. It’s a pretty word, calligraphy emphasizing the loops almost too enticing. But in college, I found people had the same impression of me: that I was fearless. (Then again, some people thought I also smoked pot. Don’t worry mom I don’t.) I spent a lot of college trying—maybe a little too hard—to embrace being fearless. I seemed to overstep, and all my fears and worries collapsed inward. I pushed on, juggling so much. Trying to balance life while working on your internal structure is like trying to change the battery of the car when it’s running.
Then, I found my fear was laced with a deeper dose of lack of confidence. I mean, I guess everyone understands that high school is the worst and cuts you down, but then in college you find your footing. But I didn’t really realize how intertwined the problems were until I went abroad. I wouldn’t just encourage everyone to study abroad, honestly I would make it mandatory. Not only do you get to experience another culture and realize what is universal and what is directly associated with where you are in life. It opens your eyes to your full potential. With your eyes open and your feet laced and ready to go explore, you gain so much self-confidence. To explore new areas, you have to go for it. There is no second-guessing, no map questing your way out of somewhere, or calling your parents for help. You have to figure it out. You have to rely on yourself. In the chaos, you find assurance in yourself and that assurance helps you navigate life. Out there, taking flights by myself, wandering around ruins by myself, and even wandering around Amsterdam by myself, I realized that when my adrenaline kicked in because I was scared, I began to thrive. I lusted for the oddities, still do. I tuck each bit of chaos in my brain story board.
I’m a collector. I like to differentiate this from a hoarder, because my collections are stacked and fit into my apartment only spilling into the hallway. I have shelves of books, bins of photos, and tons of stories. But my favorite collection is the stories that I have with people that may be dumb but still make people laugh because of the strange things that happens to me. I am a storyteller. I like making things seem absolute. I do best in the structure of the story slipping in the one liner that I had missed saying in the moment. When testing a new story, I start like I would upon a hard liquor: easy sips then the more I drank the easier it is. The more I told stories, the easier they came taking their own shape. As the story solidified, all the in-the-moment fear was cut out and all the emotional what the heck did I just do? was gone. Maybe that’s why people thought I was fearless.
Post-college, I was presented with a job opportunity. Therefore, I have recently moved to the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. I decided to take this job knowing only one person out here. A person who moved away two weeks before I moved in. So here I am with coworkers who are getting to know me and an empty apartment that I fill with the sound of books on tape to avoid feeling lonely. I’m scared of everything here. I’m scared of not making friends. I’m scared that I made a mistake taking this job. And most importantly I’m scared of the noises my fridge makes and the delayed thud that my closet makes every time I close it. (I promise there isn’t a body in there. And I thought I left all my skeletons in Streamwood.) But this week, I have realized what the word fearless actually meant. It doesn’t mean that I am not scared to do all of these things. It means doing all of these things and living life even though I am scared. It may have taken me a few years, but I’m leaning in to being fearless, with all my fears in tow.