Fear...

This is a re-post from my old blog...but I read it and thought it kinda applies to my life right now as well. Starting a new chapter in my life, like I was when this was originally written...I wanted to share it with those of you who haven't read it before.

Hope you all like...

Being afraid is not a bad thing…I know that better than anyone. I know what it is like to be around people who are scared to death all the time. Cancer eating away at my cousins' child, cancer eating away at my other cousins' child, watching my own mother not sleep soundly for years for fear of dying in her sleep because some bonehead doctor with absolutely NO bedside manner tells her that one day…she would do exactly that…die in her sleep. Finding out that I was going to be a single mom…now that was fear incarnate. I know this kind of fear.
And the fear of lonliness, of being alone, the weight of that. The fear of waking up in the middle of the night when you hear a noise and knowing whatever caused it could rip your throat out or cost you thousands of dollars-a burglar, or a broken furnace. Knowing that the weight of your life, your desisions, your next moment is all driven your very own hands and not not another's. The weight of that.

No one to throw the grenade if you forget one. No one to remember change for the tip. No one, besides you, to hold the son who fell and scraped his knee. A few good friends to cover your ass, but no one there always. No one to curl around your back in July when the worst thunderstorm of the year hits- tearing off your gutters, and causing the tree next door to fall directly into your yard, while you shake and cry in bed alone over the sound of the horrible thunder. That ache just to have someone want you. The paralyzing fear that you may have been beautiful once and never knew it. Maybe also, maybe someone you knew wanted you, wanted to run his fingers along the inside of your thigh until you jumped on top of him and rode him like a pony. What if you missed that because you were afraid you might miss it?

What if you forgot to look up to see if he was watching you because you were always too damn busy? Wondering if you stay alone, and when you turn 65 who will help you with your cane? Who will adjust you hearing aid? Who will drive you to the hair salon to get your weekly "tweak"?

Jadedgirl knows about being afraid. She knows what it's like to spend months imagining life without him, wondering if the boy will be permanently damaged by getting to know and love someone for him to ultimately leave.
Will the car get paid for?
Will it run for four more years?
Will I ever be OK at Christmas?
If I keep screwing up my life will everyone still love me?
Will I ever not be afraid?

The trenches of her own world has turned Jadedgirl into a soldier who has no more space for the purple hearts she has won-even as she prepares for another battle.

Even as she closes her eyes and imagines rolling into the clouds without cover of the grass below her. Even as she wonders what she will say, where she will stay, what will happen next, she also knows in two months, a week, or even a few hours later she will look back on these moments of hesitation and self-doubt with the mature knowledge that somehow everything will be just fine. Somehow there are still lessons to learn and pages to read and places to see.

Life she knows, from seeing it slip from her mothers hands, never ends or begins at one particular time. It is a succession of chances and change and challenges that ripple through your life in waves that, thank God, sometimes give you another opportunity, another moment to catch your shallow breath, another view of a terrific beach, another unexpected experience that can change the direction of the very air that courses through your lungs.

This is what fear is, and what I have decided is not me anymore.
I lost my job this week…and I have really been struggling financially.
But, I spent the weekend camping with my wonderful boyfriend, and came home to my smiling child, who hugged me for 15 minutes, and realized that it will all be OK. In the greater scheme of things it has to be OK.
Yes, I will still be a worry wart, and I will probably obsess about my life in general still. I will still hang on to hope that this guy will stick around, and that I will find a better job and that Logan will be happy all the time. I will still worry, yes…because these things are important to me to be happy as well. But…the difference now, is that I am prepared, and strong enough to handle and fix it if one of these things go wrong.

After David, I didn't think I could get out of bed, let alone be happy or love again…and yet…
I do get out of bed every morning…somedays slower than others…but I do.
I am happy, despite the new financial constraints.

And I love.

I have more things in me to be grateful for than I have to fear.

I guess this epiphone came to me this weekend while Doug was holding me under the stars in a sleeping bag, as we laughed at some private joke together, and he pushed the hair out of my face to kiss me goodnight…that I have nothing to fear. Change may come…yes. I know he may not stick around. I know that these moments I have with him may be few, but the time I have now…and not later is what I have decided to dwell on, rather than scare myself shitless over every little thing. I also realized it as my son was cluching my waist this evening and telling me how much he loves me. I have more than some, and less than most in my life…and I know that. But if even for a second of my life I have happiness…it's ok…it will all turn out ok. How do I know this?
I dunno…it's a mystery.
I'll just keep looking up to find that rainbow after the thunderstorm, I know it's there somehwere.

Last thought-
"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time…"
-Edith Wharton

Having a great time-
Jaded