Natalie Vartanian's Blog

Pinky Swearing and the Many Faces of Fear

Okay the title makes it sound like a more drastic post than it actually is (The Many Faces of Fear!) but then again, we act like it is a disease or something. It IS a personal experience and we usually never want to talk about it … seems to me it’s the real F word. I was prompted to write about this topic after my friend Marissa emailed me in response to my last post. Something she said stood out for me … in her exact words: “Your post was amazing because it didn't seem to mention any fear.” My automatic reaction to that was “Are you kidding me? Of COURSE there was fear.” Which prompted me to proceed to “I mean, come on, I’m going to a foreign country for a month!! I must be crazy!”

Seriously, I felt like I was in fear’s grip hold for a good two weeks. Pretty much as soon as I got the text asking me if I was open and willing to do something crazy like go live in Costa Rica for a month, the inconspicuous little cloud started hovering above me. I could not tell what was up with me but I just felt this ever so slight sadness. I started questioning things, even things I love doing and/or know I’m good at. Everything was under inspection and none of the answers I came up with brought solace. It was such a subtle thing that I did not even notice the impact it was having on me. All the tasks were getting done on the to do list, in excellence even, but something felt off.

I feel as if I barely snapped out of it a couple of days ago. In retrospect, a big part of it was fear like “Okay, so everything you’ve always wanted is here so don’t fuck it up!” and the other part was “Are you crazy? You can’t be so spontaneous and adventuresome, you have bills to pay and need to focus on supporting yourself!” I teeter-tottered between the two and both felt real and true. It wasn’t until the thought literally popped in to my head: “Natalie, you are basically living your dream life and you are not even present enough to enjoy it.” that I saw how much the fear had put me in to a trance.

When I say many faces of fear, I mean fear looks very different to different people. It ALSO can look a number of different ways to the SAME person. There was a part of me that did not even recognize the fear because it was wearing the mask of responsible, self-sufficient, hard-working Natalie. My saboteur, she’s a smart one. I call her Matilda. Matilda basically lives in the library, is wicked smart and doesn’t waste her time on anything but work and learning. Let’s just say Matilda doesn’t have a life because to her that distracts from being able to support yourself and you wouldn’t want to end up a bum or a loser would you? She’d rather be homeless than ask someone for a favor.

Yup, her argument can be that convincing. (I think she must have been on the debate team in High School, and I mean all four years!). Silly right? Exactly. In retrospect I agree. But at the time, it was a challenge to notice it and call it for what it was.

Obviously there is a happy ending to this story. I snapped out of it. Plain and simple. I decided it was kind of ridiculous that I was not reaping the reward of the hard work I went through to get to this point! I even get how much sweeter it is to be here BECAUSE I worked my ass off to get here. I plan to savor this accomplishment and every single one from here on out. It did not just magically appear … there were blood, sweat and tears. Okay so maybe not blood, definitely sweat and tears. We thought about doing a blood pact, but settled for pinky swearing. You get the drift! We committed to doing more adventurous things and look at us now. I was going to write two months, but it’s actually only a month later … after we pinky swore to consult with each other when an awesome opportunity comes up … we are going to Costa Rica to live, work and play … for a MONTH! Ridiculously crazy right?

Moral of the story: Fear is going to be there. You can either let it paralyze you or use it to propel you. I don’t know about you, but I prefer option two myself … seems funner. Try pinky swearing too … it works.

March 16, 2011 ~ NV

posted by Natalie Vartanian @ 11:56 PM