Fear.
It's here, lurking amongst all the surging greatness.
Thankfully, the fear is not asserting itself, but it's not entirely quiet.
All the words I consider to describe this fear seem all to be describing one thing:
Life.
Fear of living.
Fear of being vulnerable to stuff I know has a sharp, sharp edge.
Fear of being discovered, seen, known... and ultimately rejected.
Fear of not measuring up. Fear of not being enough. Fear of being alive.
I would have said not even a week ago it would be easier to ignore the potential, the obvious immediate potency of Us, than to to confront this fear.
Just a few days ago, I would have told anyone who asked: I am not available to love, not capable of feeling love right now, I am in transition.
I had a lot ways to say: I am afraid.
So what changed so hugely that it would be harder, much harder to deny this new Us?
Here's my guess.
It's easy to deny the wave, to resist the wave, to forget the wave, when you're standing on the beach, fingers in your ears, head in the sand.
But when the wave comes and takes you, its simply a lie to say there is no wave. To deny it is simply the choice to drown.
So I have been swept into Us, and I can't pretend Us isn't real. I feel power of Us surging inside me. I feel tears in my eyes when I see a picture of you. I grin when you giggle across the internet and through my Mac. I click through your photos over and over, enjoying the world through your eyes.
It takes no effort. I am in the wave, I am swimming, grinning, expanding into our new space, this new Us. Thanks errant wave! Or dutiful wave?
But the fear was not left on the beach. Its right here. In both of us. It asks for caution. It looks for errors in our evaluations. It ticks away the time between conversations, emails, messages... sending up whispers of doubt.
The fear looks back at the beach, always; that lonely patch of sand with room for one and no sharp objects.
Life smashes us all into existence, and life breaks us all apart. A celebration of life literally brought our paths into sync.
To be afraid is natural. Fear of pain, of life's end, is itself perfectly reasonable.
But we can't deny the wave.
Not if we want to live.
Best we learn to surf, I think.
