Feel the Fear... and Do It Anyway

"Feel the fear and do it anyway"- Susan Jeffers. The first time I read this quote I was fresh out of a long term relationship, scared out of my mind about the future. I had given my all to this relationship, sacrificed many dreams and myself to make this person happy. In the end, it did not work out. I was starting over and the fear was debilitating. All I wanted to do was run back to the safety of my old relationship, regardless of the fact that it had been slowly killing me... I was a shadow of myself, so far gone that I all I could see was a stranger staring back at me every time I looked in the mirror.

I had to start over, the thing is no one gives you a manual on how to do this. The moving on is a darkness, a tunnel you have to go through alone. It seems never ending, the pain a constant reminder of your failure, the regrets constantly churning in your mind. I knelt down in my fears, tears streaming down my face, the anxiety a vice around my heart and I said to God, "What now? What do I do? What should I do about this fear that is pushing me further into darkness?" He didn't answer me because unlike what the movies would have you believe, you really do not hear a voice speaking back to you when you cry out to God.

Instead I slowly began to feel this strong desire to move away from my hometown, a place I had lived in almost all my life. I knew this place, it was a piece of my heart, held memories I wanted to keep. But still I knew I had to go even I had any hope of moving on. What was here was now gone.. no matter what my heart was telling me, the hope it held for love, I had to go even without savings, to a place where I would likely have to start over, make new friends, meet new people, form a new home. I had to go even with the fresh anxiety blooming in my heart that moving would mean really saying goodbye and acknowledging that my love, my dream, my efforts were really over.

And so I did... with sweaty palms and a beating heart, with little to my name, I built a new hope... I " felt the fear and did it anyway".