Fear has a seat at my table

I was seated at a vendor table at a conference designed around the concept of fearless women, looking for inspiration. 

There by schedule, not by choice, I was excited to be representing the company I work for and even more excited that the conference's vendors would be seated around the perimeter of the room. We would hear the speakers! 

The day started off promising. The event facilitator was enthusiastic and energetic. She had us start our day with qigong movements and promised us keynote speakers who would engage and inspire us.

The first few did exactly that. However, as the day went on, the only thing on the conference agenda was speakers — and speaker fatigue set in. And while each woman spoke passionately about key turning points in her life that brought her to the place she is now, my mind drifted. 

Their messages — no matter how sincerely they were delivered — were lost on me because they all blended together. There was no time to discuss or reflect before the next speaker began.   Wincing, I realized with hours to go, very little business (the conference participants were small in number) and being trapped at my table, I would need to come up with a plan to pass the time, stay alert and make my experience meaningful. Self-reflection for the win!

One thing that I have in common with all of the speakers was a catalyst that changed my life and put it onto a different trajectory. For me, that was the death of My Favourite Husband (MFH). 

Like most people, I’ve had multiple events in my life that have shifted my perspective, altered my life course. Moving away from home at 18. Marriage. These are two. But nothing has altered my life path, made me realize what is and what is not important to me, and made me stand up and become who I am and who I want to be, like losing MFH. Nothing. That’s clear. 

But what makes me think along different lines is this: I do not believe myself to be fearless. To be fearless, by definition, is to be without fear. Lemme tell you, fear has driven most of my decisions. I am not a fearful woman with everything or even most things on my life but fear in different moments has driven me to make decisions. The fear of picking up the phone in the middle of the night I got the call. The fear of acknowledging his death. The fear of driving to the hospital to confirm his death was real. And after, the fear that everything had changed, including what I had envisioned our future would be like. 

I had — and continue to have — the most supportive circle of friends a girl could ever ask for but shaping my life going forward was something that I had to do on my own. And I was scared as fuck, especially at the beginning. I was scared to make financial decisions, house decisions. Scared to make new friends and let go of old ones. Scared to travel on my own. Scared to be vulnerable writing this blog. Scared to date, scared to be physically intimate, even more scared to be emotionally intimate. Scared of a lot. 

However — and this is huge — despite being scared, I haven’t backed down from making decisions. I have let the fear guide me and not hold me back. Some decisions are faster and some are taking a bit longer to make. In fact, the only decision where fear and not I are in control is the whole dating and sex thing. I will admit that there fear is still in charge. I’m not sure why but at some point my fear, my hesitancy, will back down and I’ll conquer it as well. 

So, am I fearless? No. Am I continually fearful? No. I am bold,  brave, strong, smart. In a situation where I have fear, I stress, assess and make a decision. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong and need to recalculate. But I always acknowledge to myself that I’m scared. I give fear a name. I know it’s real. Much like grief, fear has a seat at my table although our relationship can be uneasy. I embrace its place and never mock it or laugh in its face when I conquer it. I thank it for the push forward and give it gratitude for being part of my life.