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Do you ever notice how much energy we expend to avoid saying, “I’m scared?”

Maybe it gets cloaked in irritation—at the person in front of you taking forever in line, or at your partner’s dirty dishes. Maybe at your mom.

Maybe it’s pain in your body.
A gripping through your abdomen.
Your rectum.
Your shoulder.
Your jaw.

Maybe it’s an inability to sit still.
An urge to always be doing.
Planning.
Achieving.
Sorting through.

Whatever it is, it’s all the same fear, wearing some kind of costume.
Head down.
Trying to slink on by.

See your fear. Even say it out loud, “I am scared.”

I mean it. Try it right now.

“I’m scared.”
“I’m afraid.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Scream it if you’d like. Let it echo simply against the corners of your walls. Against the tree trunks. Into the open air.

You don’t need to do anything about it right now. You don’t need to know exactly why. You can say it, and you’re still here.

You can say it, and the world won’t end.

You can say it, and you still have limbs and a heart and a beat and a breath.

Because sometimes fear just likes to be seen.
Called to.
Heard.

Sometimes you’ll need to move.
To wail.
To stretch.

And sometimes you will go about your business. You’ll sleep. You’ll wonder if it’ll ever leave.

And then one day you’ll wake, and you’ll see that it has left.
Leaving a rumpled sheet.
And lipstick on the coffee cup.
And so much space in your chest.

 

 

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