During the Spring of 2020, as the whole world took a step up on the ‘fear-scale’ (me too!), I found myself unable to handle even my own life.
I started getting outside … just walking, running, or anything to step away and regroup for awhile. Time in nature and memories gave me an INCREDIBLE gift. It is still helping me in my fight with fear today.
Here’s my story:
The Fighting
I’m struggling again.
I spent the morning listening to friends on opposite sides of an issue, each trying to convince the other they are right. Even simple conversations quickly turn heated and devolve into the same unending argument. It’s gotta be one way, but not the other … No it’s gotta be the other way, not the one.
Both need to be right, the stakes are too high.
I’m stuck in the middle, not choosing a side. I want only to somehow ease the pain each is feeling, but that’s beyond my control. Except listening … I can listen as long as needed, and each really needs to talk.
I hear my feet pounding the pavement, birds in the trees are chirping and up ahead I see storm clouds signaling rain. I’m here because instead of reaching for chocolate to help me deal, I threw on running shoes and headed out the door.
THIS needs so much more than a simple chocolate fix.
A pause button for the whole world
How did we get here?
One minute we were doing our busy lives and the next everything stopped … like a giant pause button for the stage of the whole world.
I remember Christmas mornings back before cell phones and internet … No one was out, everything was quiet, stopped and still. That looked a lot like this, but somehow not.
THIS is something entirely new. A whole world waiting … and not in a good way.
Nails hiding in plain sight
Fear is a tough one. It is the rationalizer, justifier, blinder and isolator … going there in my mind and heart is not a pretty place.
I hear the pounding of my feet change. I’ve left the paved path and turned onto the old railroad trail. I ran here a lot when I first moved to Pullman. It was a place my “10 yrs ago self” came to run … in the wide and open, surrounded, but still very much alone.
I was struggling then too. A new town, new people, a new life … missing what I had left behind … A place and friends I loved, A LIFE I had loved and dearly missed.
I come to the old trestle bridge and take the too large step to get on top. I pass by the spot of the ‘barely raised up nail’. Back then I had tripped and fallen, tearing up my leg so badly, sliding to a painful halt. I remember being SO MAD at myself … “Pick up your feet! How could you get tripped up by a tiny nail barely sticking up?!”
But sometimes we get tired of trying, of losing battles we didn’t even know we were fighting. Sometimes our feet just drag and we lose in the moment and go down. It doesn’t feel ok, but eventually it is. There’s always a lesson and second chances are a built in part of life … thank goodness.
Whispered Reminders
I see the span of time then to now. A long list of overwhelming, impossible things that somehow all dissolved in the intervening years. My “10 yrs ago self” not knowing now, is still engaged in the thick of the battle.
In my memories, I whisper encouragement to her … knowing that this one she would win and many more. Something in me settles as she pauses mid parry to hear. Then I pause too … astonished as she echoes my words back to me again.
In our pause, we look forward together and hear whispers of “10 yrs from today” and what she, from then, is telling us both. It’s perspective. And not in a small way.
Stopped in the moment, I take a deep breath and look around. I’m outside listening to the birds unceasing chatter and I see life, undaunted, moving forward all around me.
Something past echoes in me to embrace the good, seeing that the story I choose to write now will continue long after I move on from this place.
Something future whispers not to trip up on the things that won’t matter then, but please pay close attention and keep peace with those that will.
Ending the Fight
To my friends struggling … both hurting, both scared: realize this battle is not with each other. The real fight is personal and the enemy is FEAR.
Take a deep breath and choose today so tomorrow will thank you, just as yesterday did. You will win this, and many more.
Pick up your feet. Don’t let the overwhelming and seemingly impossible cause you to drag and snag and slip and fall. Those little nails hide subtly even in plain sight. Sliding to a painful stop is a hard way to realize you’ve allowed yourself to become something you never wanted to be.
I finish my run … legs heavy, but my soul is light. The weight of fear has dissolved with the help of two-sided perspective, that of Overcoming & Becoming. An unexpected gain and it is beyond valuable.
I head into the house to shower and change and live a better today.
