Waking Up To Slay My Dragons

Experience counts

Fear used to live in moments when I’d lie in bed sorting through the darkness for the answers to questions that had been plaguing me for a while or which I had just dreamt into existence. Lately, I’ve realized I’m not afraid.

But I still can’t sleep; so, I pick up a pen and try to invent something better.

Slay it.

Nothing much frightens me anymore

Not like that time when as a child I grabbed that stranger’s hand instead of my father’s. Or that time I was woken up by the sound of a fireman banging on the door ordering me to evacuate. The resort we were staying at was going up in flames.

The time the lifeguard jumped into the pool to save me when I was pretending to drown. I remember seeing the fear in his eyes vanish as he swam toward me. The fear and the bravery cycled through us both until he dragged me out of the pool.

When I ran away to Mazatlan seeking relief from a series of heartaches and could barely afford the airfare, I stayed in a cheap hotel in the less luxurious part of town. I could only grasp at the beauty surrounding me. I could barely recognize the pride in each Dalia petal, the balletic grace of Birds of Paradise, or many hues of Gladiolus.

It was hard when I was constantly looking over my shoulder.

Having found no solace, I headed to Los Mochis to board the transcontinental Al Pacifico Railway, a train that takes you across terrifyingly steep canyons, through dark tunnels, and barely escapes the cliffs against which the tracks were laid. And I barely escaped that one night in Chihuahua with the two guys who befriended me on the train.

I have known fear. I remember it.

Turning the corner on fear

At some point, I started to accept potentially dangerous, sad, or disappointing situations as staples of life.

Was it being aboard the US Natchez when it rammed into an oil tanker in New Orleans?

Or the attempted mugging we were victims to later that evening?

Seeing my dad’s chest wired with electrodes as he told me to take care of my mother?

Or driving back to the hospital in the dark of night after he had passed?

Retrieving my yellow-and-blue striped Tiger sneakers from outside the door of my host’s apartment door and seeing they had been slashed to bits by some unknown perpetrator?

Or waking up screaming in Mandarin a couple of months after returning home from there?

I’m still looking over my shoulder but for a different reason. My memories make me stronger.

At some point, I turned the corner on fear.

I was not afraid when I thought I was having panic attacks and Urgent Care insisted I go to the ER. They gave me a choice of ambulance or taxi. Somehow, a diagnosis of AFib is less frightening following a New York taxi ride.

It took me 20 years to be brave enough to leave a man who had convinced himself that it was okay to wait to invest in our relationship.

I wasn’t afraid when it came time to let my mother go.

I finally traveled on my own again, heading out to the beach for a puppy-and-me short vacation. OK, so not all alone.

Life’s experience for protection

Now I wear my experience like a suit of armor.

Nothing much frightens me anymore. Potentially dangerous, sad, or disappointing situations don’t have the same impact as they might have earlier in my life.

Like that time I had to climb a 12-foot fence to get to the bar on the other side. As the only female member of the leadership team, my honor was at stake, as were drinks for everyone else. I just handed the CTO my purse and went for it.

If there are moments that test the armor, where I am engaged in some existential tournament between good and evil or sickness and health, I’m able to draw on those earlier experiences for strength.

It won’t always be easy; oftentimes, it’s not. But I’m going to slay it because I’ve faced some version of this dragon before.

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This is the latest in my Notes-To-Post series, Bite-Sized Storytelling based on Notes of 300 words or less.