The room was full of chattering voices. No language was easily understandable, instead it was simply energetic laughter, sharing of creative ideas, and the hint of possibilities bouncing from one tall black wall to another. The energy felt how college campuses are supposed to be: passionate, curious, open.
I sat on the sidelines, my back straight and my book in hand, looking toward the players with the surprise sting of meeting my eyelids. Saltiness prevented me from seeing anything in the room at all.
In those moments, it was as if I was picked up and taken I was to an entirely different room in a different part of Bakersfield twenty plus years ago. It was early December, 1992 or 1993.
This was a "moments after" experience when something significant is said and we quickly brush it aside like we wipe sweat away from our foreheads on a hot afternoon. The thing is, conversations like this will not disappear entirely. They sit, instead, in the cracks of memory for as long as it takes. In this case, the memory waited for more than twenty years for the space to not only be heard but also to be understood.
She was standing in front of me again. She had thick brown hair, carefully curled, and big brown eyes whose tears matched the tears in my blue eyes. We were both in our early thirties, a time when many of our fellow moms were shuttling children to pre-school in carefully purchased clothes and backpacks rather than taking flowers to decorate the gravesides of babies who never would go to pre-school.
“I don’t know if I am brave enough to try again," she said to me. It was a courageous confession, which I didn't recognize at the time.
I took a breath and responded, “I don’t know if I am brave enough to NOT try again.”
The fifty-year-old me quaked from those words the thirty-year-old me spoke back into existence. My friend was so bold to recognize her power to say no to the possibility of no pain.
On the other hand I didn't think about process or the "what might happen along the way" to the result my heart longed for, I simply wanted what I wanted. In the twenty years between these conversations I had grown a lot, but I still hadn't completely understood the gravity of what she said in that moment of complete authenticity.
"I don't know if I am brave enough to try again." reached into my heart and into my present day circumstances. "I am brave enough to not try again." and "I am brave enough not to....."
The tear-daggers filling my eyes in the college rehearsal hall were borne of "brave enough not to..." I realized, all of a sudden, I was brave enough not to..... I have the courage to consciously not.... whatever I needed to not do in order to be or do or have whatever it is my heart desires or doesn't even know it desires yet.
The brick layers, walls built by my own psyche to “protect” me fell away.
I haven’t been brave enough to practice saying “Enough is enough. I can’t continue to try or pretend everything is well when it clearly isn’t.”
I was able to hold my heart inside my chest as rehearsal continued. These memory moments took place, after all, at rehearsal for a play which includes one of the most famous curses in the theatre experience.
It is no accident: my theme for 2014 is BOLD.
I am bold enough, brave enough courageous enough to stand up for myself and say “enough is enough” in whatever circumstances I find myself. I expect more than I think are there will appear as possibilities in lesson learning.
Do you stand up for yourself?
When you do stand up for yourself, do you act with defiance and heated opinion or do you stand up with objectivity and grace?
I am reminded of the words of Marcus Aurelius: “If the waters overwhelm you, let them overwhelm flesh, breath, and all else, but they will never make shipwreck of the mind.”
I am brave enough to continue sailing, even if the fabric hanging from the mast is torn and dirty. I can fix that as time goes on. I will stand up and stand with you as we reclaim our minds and our hearts as we seek to be on purpose and stay the course with passion.
We are more than brave enough.
Now is the time to build the underpinnings to this boldness, this courage, this bravery so that we may apply it to whatever is happening in our lives. Are you ready to experience life with a higher level of fearlessness? A true audacity? A giddy sense of passion and purpose?
Let's do this!
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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Coming soon - more creativity camps, playgrounds and workshops to grow yourself artistically (and hey, just for fun!)
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