Growing Up with Fear

by living-glass

The hardest part about growing up is not the idea of constantly spiralling into labyrinths, nor is it the painful thought of suffering scrapes and bruises. The hardest part about growing up is the unpredictability of falling, the vagueness of what one is getting him or herself into, the element of surprise that we envision from time to time, yet we have no control or complete understanding of what it really is. And that uncertainty, the great unknown, ultimately leads to fear. Fear has always been a predominant state of consciousness in my mind. Fear, to me, is as simple as a mask: it paints an entirely new image over what you really are, it blends in well with the paint, and it hides the good while displaying the bad; a personally tailored facade for disguise. Fear, to many people, is a toxin. But to me, fear can be too repulsively pure sometimes. And in all of its purity, it gets you in all the wrong places, and exposes all your weaknesses;

Fear of having too many choices, fear of making one, fear of the future, fear of bad grades, fear of punishment, fear of burning bridges, fear of building one, fear of falling in love, fear of regretting, fear of spiders, fear of peace that is temporary, fear of happiness that doesn’t last, fear of people leaving, fear of people staring, fear of awkward situations, fear of moments when I am defeated, fear of breakouts, fear of bad hair days, fear of the mirror, fear of the number on the weighing scale, fear of rainy days and overwhelming thoughts, fear of empty shower rooms and voices that echo off the whitewashed walls and in my head, fear of never being good enough, fear of losing trails of thoughts, fear of losing myself, fear of my own self.

And that is the beauty of growing up, the beauty of uncertainty and falling into uncertainty’s traps —

You learn that bravery is worth the risk.

“Bravery is more intelligent than fear, since it is built on the foundation of what one knows about oneself: the knowledge of one’s strength and capacity, of one’s passion.”