Fear can be paralyzing. For me, fear seems to originate in the midst of an over-analytical thought, a supercritical moment, where it creeps through my skull, down my neck and through my veins until it reaches my core, tightening my chest, hardening my heart with anxiety, and then shooting out to my remaining extremities.
This process has been ongoing for quite sometime now, and up until recently, I had let fear take over my body and heart. As odd and hypochondriacal as it may seem, I actually went to the doctor a couple of years ago for heart palpitations. I seemed to have some sort of arrhythmia. The doctors performed a series of tests and went so far as to give me a stress test, which is meant for senior citizens, and he even hooked me up to a halter monitor for a day! However, they couldn't find anything wrong with me. The doctor mentioned it was probably stress, and I'm sure he was right. Deep down, though, I knew it was stress rooted in fear.
For a long time, I've been paralyzed by fear. I found love at 19, and it was beautiful. Prior to that, I did not know love, and I attribute a great deal of the person I am currently to falling in love at 19. I refuse to be one of those people that says, "I just thought I loved him," because I did not think I loved him. I did. Fully.
And at 19, he was exactly what I needed. He was the perfect mixture of excitement, coupled with a new way to explore myself and parts of me that I did not know. And we continued that way for a while.
As I grew, I fell in love and slowly wanted to let the entirety of my life absorb these feelings, and I wanted the other areas of my life to absorb him. I've never viewed life as isolated pieces, segmented and compartmentalized. Rather, I've always viewed it as a gradient, all parts intertwined and blended together. He viewed it otherwise, I think.
Despite our disagreements, and the arguments that stemmed from them, I stayed, partially out of love, but also out of fear. Surely, this thing called love was a coveted one, and I did not want to lose it, no matter the price.
While I could not say it at the time, I think I was most fearful that giving up, or breaking up, would say something about me. The fear that overtook my body more so was a fear of admitting that I was not enough. It was a fear that love does not, in fact, conquer all. It was a fear that I could not do whatever I set my mind to. It was a fear that I was not perfect, and that I might have some limitations.
So here I am, over five years later, not enough, knowing that love does not conquer all, knowing that I may not achieve everything that I set my mind to, imperfect, and limited.
But no longer fearful.
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