You can’t say you’re not scared of anything.
I mean, I guess you could, but I feel like deep deep down everyone is scared of something. Not gonna lie, I have lots of fears – some of them as simple as being afraid of the dark or complex as fathoming the possibility of lifelong loneliness. You’ve got your base level fears and then you’ve got your deep fears, the ones that kinda tug at your heart and wrack your brain. I’ve got a few of each but there’s one I’ve been pondering for quite some time.
Let’s start off with when my fear became a reality. When I was little, sometimes my dad and I would go on walks down our street to the end of the road and back. One day we were walking home and I was talking about Winnie the Pooh or something and my dad told me I was getting a little too old for those movies. I don’t remember what else followed in the conversation but at the end of it I blurted out, “Dad, I don’t want to grow up; Im scared.” He asked me why and honestly I had no answer because . . . I didn’t know why.
It wasn’t because I would stop living for free, receive no more nice things, or have less responsibility. It was simply a fear I had. My dad continued to respond and told me growing up was inevitable; that we all have to grow up someday. He was right, obviously, but as soon as the words left his mouth something inside me shifted. I was expecting him to have a solution to help me prevent growing up. But he didn’t. I remember I immediately got a lump in my throat and walked in silence the whole way home. I went into my room, cried, and took a shower to cover up my tear-stained cheeks.
In that moment, my fear became a reality. In that moment, when I decided to say it out loud, the fear became tangible.
I’m scared to grow up.
Since that walk, I swear not a day goes by when I don’t think about being scared to grow up. When I tell people I’m scared, I’ve never had a reason. I just don’t want to. It’s not that I’m not scared of being old, of ‘getting out of the loop’, not being able to do things on my own as I get older (even though that’s a horrible reality)- it’s just frightening.
As you know I’m currently living in Swaziland. Let me tell you, there’s nothing out here but silence, your friends, and your thoughts. It doesn’t take much to get way deep in your head here. Honestly, it’s a blessing and a curse. About a week after I turned 19 I got into a rut about getting older. I refused to let myself age. One night I was sitting outside alone, accompanied by my journal and music. I was just drawing stars over and over and over again until I filled up half the page. I was getting so annoyed because I couldn’t think of anything else to draw, just stars and stars and more stars.
As I was drawing them I kinda started to get a hold on the fear floating around in my head for so long, and as soon as I realized the fear, what was happening, I gripped it. I realized why I was so scared to grow up.
I’m scared to lose the creativity, imagination, and childlike wonder I’ve carried for the majority of my life. Will I one day Iook up at the sky and instead of imagining myself flying through the clouds holding the atoms that form the clouds, sky, and the very air we breathe, what they are and dancing through storms within clouds , will l just look up and see a bunch of clouds blocking the sun, making the day cooler and be satisfied? I’m scared that one day I’ll lay eyes on the sunset and instead of imagining it sketched out right in front of me, seeing the whispy clouds and pencil marks making shadows within the sky, I’ll simply witness the same old sunset I see every night. That I’ll open my journal with the intention of doodling or writing straight from my brain but instead needing a reference to gain an idea of what to write. That the depth people say I have -and I know I have- won’t exist anymore, that I’ll just be some ordinary version of a normal me.
To not know the Lord or approach Him with the childlike manner and innocence. To so intensely overcomplicate the Lord that I come to the point of questioning if this God I say I believe in is even real. To come to a point where in my prayers I need to ask the Lord for the simplicity of childlike wonder so I can hear his voice. That’s the fear, the sometimes split-second thought, hours-and-hours thought, days-on-end thought that crosses my mind everyday. A thought with the potential to be so deep and complex. Then I take a step back to examine the big picture of it all . . . it becomes so simple.
When you think about it, this fear I have is something that can be so easily stopped or slowed down. At the same time it can also be a reality that’s slow and inevitable. To lose everything you told yourself you would hold onto as you grew older. To realize the only way to relive the reality you once used to so vicariously live is through your younger siblings, your kids, or grandkids, TV shows, movies, or whatever works for you. For me it’s movies, kids I babysit, and my memories and it scares me because I catch myself doing it often. But as I was sitting at the table looking at the ridiculous amount of stars I drew thinking about all of the scary stuff, I had this kind of consoling realization. I like to look at the bigger picture; it’s something I often do and it has potential to be good or bad. In this situation I considered it a good thing. So here’s what I came up with.
There’s good and bad things that come with growing up; everyone has their own list. I’ll list the some of the good things for the sake of this slightly scary blog. There’s confidence in weight-bearing wisdom combined with the world you live inside your head. There’s knowing the words you speak carry weight -not just because you’re older- but because you’ve lived a life filled with experiences that stretched and molded you into a combination of sacrifice for growth and celebration of all that comes with that divine life abundant.
For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about my future kids in this list of the good things that come with growing up (an extreme turn of events lol). I watch them grow up in their own imaginary world, knowing to an extent, but at the same time have absolutely no idea what’s going on in their beautiful minds. To relive the years you don’t realized you missed so dearly with your kids as they grow up and to see how far you’ve come in the life you’ve lived. Im writing this and literally tearing up thinking about it (emo what the heck). To be able to stand in my kitchen one day and look out the window and just watch and know and feel deep down in my soul the captivating world that they’re living in. To watch or participate and remember what it was like for just a few minutes every day and until the day they grow up to try and imagine the world they live in. To be able to talk to them when the possible fear of growing up creeps into their minds and to tell them what I’m telling you and constantly reminding myself of.
There’s beauty in the fear that you try so hard to cover up. I’m realizing that now, like as I’m writing this blog haha. Its just a matter of if you are willing to get down to the nitty gritty of it, to the parts of thinking you were just scared of one thing but realizing that there’s so much more to it and being willing to face it and not leave it alone until its finished, final, set, whatever you want to call it. It’s okay to be scared of things from time to time, but it’s not okay to live in fear.
John 18: 2-5
“He called a little child to him, and he placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child’s the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me”
thanks for reading
love, Mady
