The Silence of Fear

Written in Verse

The fear comes in waves.
What will people think?
Will I be okay?
My fear wants answers—
answers I don’t have.
The future is unknown,
terrifying.
It won’t give away its secrets.
It hides them.
Laughing.
Taunting me with its silence.
What will happen?
Who will I be?
The questions swirl.
But no answers come.

Do I dare change?
Do I challenge the unknown future to a duel?
Or do I hide?
Protecting myself from what I do not know.
Letting the fear win seems easy.
Just stay where I am.
Sit on my couch.
Pretend it’s all okay.
Except it’s not.
It’s become painful
to stay where I am.
To pretend to be someone I’m not.
I’m used to giving up,
giving in,
pretending I don’t care.
But I do care.
That gives fear the upper hand.
If I care, the fear wins.
It stops me cold,
dead in my tracks.
Do I let the fear win again?
I’m tired of that cycle.
Tired of that pain.
Fear is exhausting.
Draining.
Never-ending.
But it’s a trick.
The exhaustion isn’t true.
That’s what fear wants.
It wants me to do nothing,
to stay stuck,
to keep repeating the same pattern.

Take a nap?
Or heal myself?
That always seems to be the choice.
My bed is calling me back again—
comfortable, cozy, safe.
No!
I can’t sleep!
I must work through this fear!
Why does it hold me back so tightly?
What does it have to say
that I haven’t already heard?
Nothing.
Do it.
Break free.
Untangle the chains of fear
that bound me to a life
I didn’t want.
Who cares what they think?
I care.
My people matter to me.
It’s the fear that doesn’t care.
It’s fear’s fault I feel this way.
But it can’t stop me.
Can it?
What’s that saying?
Feel the fear and do it anyway?
Maybe that’s the trick.
Maybe that’s how I break the loop.
The fear can’t win
if I don’t give it power.
It can’t control me
unless I let it.
But I don’t have to do that.
Do I?
I can do it anyway.
Right?
The fear hangs on,
but it’s losing its grip.
I’m starting to win.
But I can’t stop now.
What’s the next step?

Oh yeah, do the thing.
That’s the hardest part of all.
Do it.
Jump in the pool.
Write the book.
Have the conversation.
Make the move.
Okay, here it goes.
I’m going to do it.

It’s done.
I’m alive.
I made it out safely.
It wasn’t easy,
but I did it anyway.
Why was that so scary?
Nothing happened, really.
It was anti-climactic at best.
Maybe I’m stronger than I thought.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it was just a fluke.
Maybe I’m lying to myself again.
But what if things change this time?
And what if that’s okay?
If I do it again,
maybe I’ll get better at it.
Maybe I’ll figure it out.
Or maybe not.
Either way,
it’s better than sitting on my couch,
isn’t it?
I didn’t have to give up this time,
or pretend I didn’t care.
It was okay to care.
To say what I wanted.
But what if it’s not okay sometimes?
What if…?
That’s always there.
Will that ever go away?
Probably not.
That’s the fear—
wanting to know
what it can’t know.
The future is unknown.
The fear can’t have its way.
My job is to learn to be okay,
with the fear,
with the doubt,
with the pain.
Feel the fear
and do it anyway.

It might not be perfect.
I won’t always win.
But I can make that okay.
I am learning
how to honor myself.
And that matters more
than the fear that I felt.

Della