"Do one thing every day that scares you." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Last week I ran four miles, much of it up a hill that used to scare me so much I never even tried to run up it. Last week I realized that the reason I couldn't run up it was because I didn't even try to run up it. So, as I ran, I chanted my new motto to myself: "You can because you do".
I first realized this was true when I found that I could actually move straight from Plank pose to Cobra pose without dropping my knees as I always had. Why did I suddenly have the upper body strength to do that? Well, because I did it. It dawned on me that you don't train for a marathon by running a mile every day. You train to run ten miles by running ten miles. I can because I do.
When I outgrew my childhood bike, I was entering junior high. My friends didn't ride bikes, and I was at the height of my clumsy, overweight period. And the big ten speed bikes scared me. The seats were high up, and you had to lean over to grab the handlebars. It wasn't what I knew, and my parents never rode one, and my friends didn't either. So I didn't buy a new bike once I was done with the childhood one. The years passed, and those big adult bikes never looked any less intimidating. I never grew any more sure that I could handle one. I have never been athletic or thin or coordinated. Eventually I found myself 33 years old and afraid of bicycles, wishing I could go ride with my daughter, but too scared to do it. I wasn't really scared of the bicycle itself, I have heard the saying about remembering how to ride, and I figured that with practice I could ride it. I was scared of those moments when I would first get on it, and teeter around, and maybe fall, and lose my balance, and look ridiculous. Outside. In public.
Last week, I learned that a friend was selling an old bike. I told her I was interested, but confessed my embarrassing secret to her. She kindly brought it to me on a trial basis. One day during Spring Break, my daughter and I headed out to our community parking area, helmets on heads, where the eight year old proudly started giving bike riding lessons to her mom. I spent a lot of time just standing there, straddling the bike. I spent more time just sitting on the seat. And then I rode it. And just as I had feared, I teetered, I swayed, I almost fell. The hills were hard and scary. Today I went back out for my second try. Honestly, it's still hard. I'm still the uncoordinated, overweight person I was when I gave up the last bike at the age of 12. But it was less scary today, and it will be less scary next time. There is one fear I no longer have though; the fear of letting strangers see me out in public struggling with my new bike. Today I rode around my neighborhood for the first time with my little girl and it was totally worth it.
The next thing that scared me was ice skating. I tried ice skating once or twice back in elementary school, and was as bad at it as I was at pretty much everything physical, so I gave up quickly. By the time I was a teenager, it wasn't falling on the ice and being injured that scared me, it was falling on the ice and being embarrassed that scared me. As an adult, it was the thought of being a grown woman scooting around on the outside edge of the rink, holding onto the wall for dear life, that scared me. My daughter started taking skating lessons a few months ago, and week after week she begged me to join her for her Saturday practice sessions. Week after week I made excuses and read a book in the lobby.
Last week, I did what scared me. I rented skates and got on the ice. And sure enough, I was the grown woman clinging to the outside wall and scooting along, just as I had feared I would be. But guess what? Twenty minutes later, I wasn't that woman anymore. And an hour later, I was just another person out on the rink. It took over twenty years to get over the fear of those twenty minutes I spent clinging to the wall. And when I did, it turned out I really enjoyed ice skating. For twenty years the fear of those twenty minutes kept me from something I would have really enjoyed. How. Stupid.
Now I am looking a new fear in the eyes. I haven't even put into words what exactly it is I am afraid of. The situation: there is a man who expressed attraction to me about six months ago. For various reasons, I turned him down. Now, I wonder if I'd have another chance with him. Now, I wish I could. It's a complicated situation due to the nature of other friendships in our lives. He promised back then that he'd never say another word about it, and he has been true to that, so I know it's up to me to say something now. The very thought has my stomach in knots.
What am I scared of? That I'll look stupid? Intellectually I know that expressing an interest in someone doesn't make a person look stupid. I didn't think he was stupid when he did it. That I'll be rejected? I guess that's a large part of it. I've faced enough rejection in the last couple of years to last a while and really don't want to go there again. That I'll be rejected and then embarrassed on top of hurt? Yes, that's big. There's that ugly fear of embarrassment again. It's a big one for me. But I've learned these last two weeks that I can conquer it. That embarrassment isn't the end of the world. That getting through it can be worth it.
I can because I do. I can run miles uphill because I ran miles uphill. I can ride a bike because I rode a bike. I can ice skate because I ice skated. I can ask him because I will ask him. Right?...
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