Just an idea...

Looking back over the last few years, the most rewarding experiences have come from me choosing to set aside my fear and take a risk, to act boldly. It sounds silly, but I just remembered how I'm always telling the choir to "sing with confidence," because even though they're worried about messing up, they know the words better than they think they do. There are worse things than going into the bridge too fast or mixing up the lyrics. It's the intention that matters.

Every great thing I've ever done, I was afraid to do at one point in time. I mean, ample proof exists at my fingertips that would suggest the time has come to accept any change for the better, no matter how frightening. I should sing with confidence, trill my melodies in this time of waiting.

Fear

There haven't been words or phrases or sentences yet invented to start off something like this, but I've been thinking, as I'm sure is abundantly clear. My most satisfying relationships are almost all with women and while that is certainly satisfactory, I think that leaves a large hole in my life.

I remember the first time I was afraid of my father and I remember, in little child wisdom, giving way to numbness and love alternately throughout much of my childhood. I clung to my mother for her great love, the best I'd ever known, and I clung to my father when I could. I remember the first time that fear came back. Fresh, raw, and potent, it paralyzed me. It was in my own stupidity that we almost died that night, all four of us. I look back and I can't believe I didn't say anything. i can't believe my own naivete, that my father was going to do what was right for his girls when he never had before. I regret how I felt and how I acted. I regret not saying no. But most of all, I regret what that makes me.

Not all men are like my father. I firmly believe that. I have seen some of the most beautiful and touching moments of fatherhood, moments when you so perfectly feel the existence of evil in the world and at the same time, the power of man to rise above it in the Lord.

But I am afraid of men. I do not trust them so easily or so wholeheartedly. I do not believe they value me as a person. I do not believe that they do or ever could need a person, a woman like me. I spend much of my time feeling like a shapeless mass, a slouching blob of nothing. But around them, I feel so incredibly small, a glass doll in an earthquake. I cannot hold myself together. I am afraid and there is nothing I can do about it.

So when it comes to love, it is no wonder I am alone. I could say it was "sabotage" and this blather could end with the feel of a formulaic chick flick, but that's not it. I need more than I could possibly expect from another human being. I need healing that can only come from God. I can't find any of that in a man and I'm not going to look for it. I have faith that if God is going to put someone in my life that He intends to have love me, He will make it clear. But until that day, I will push on, hands clasped and heart ready, no matter how my steps falter or my knees tremble. Harder things have been done.

Outlets

I have made a new endeavor to be more creative, as that seems to dispel my moods of doom. Writing is all well and good, but it is difficult to edit Proxy and unmarry that project with failure (no one's read it, it'll never be a real book, people will hate it, etc.). It's much easier to use the skills I have that are of no value to me.

I know that no one cares how I draw, so I draw. I know that no one cares about my poetry, so I write poetry. It is very freeing. There is no pressure, which is something I can say about very few aspects of my life. I spend most of my time in damage control, imagining what other people think of me and usually imagining the wrong things to boot, so it's nice to leave those thoughts behind, turn on something sultry, and say, "Fuck it, let's make some art."