Fear
What's the scariest thing you've ever done?
I can't say I've been to many scary things. I'm not the biggest real risk taker. Im a realist, I'd like to say I have a good head on my shoulders but maybe that means I'm too practical. There's such a fine line between being reckless and careless over being spontaneous or fun, and embracing the opportunities that come your way.
The scariest thing, the biggest risk I ever took, was moving away to college 8 hours away from my hometown where I did not know a single person. I never even toured the school campus. I just knew that I wanted to get as far away from home as possible when I was 18. I actually wanted to move away to New York but my parents wouldn't pay for out-of-state tuition. So, I looked at a map of California and looked at all the universities that were the furthest away from where I was and said, "fine I'll go here."
Hands-down it's the best decision I ever made in my entire life. Moving away. Starting over. Going to college.
College-
It's where I grew up. It's where I learned who I really am. It's where I learned that being different is a virtue and a value, and not something to be ashamed of. It's where I embraced my uniqueness, the way I look, I way I speak, the way I am-
I learned that all of that was OK, that I didn't need to be "like" anyone else.
I definitely grew up in a place where I was different. I didn't have friends who looked like me (read: American born Asian/Spanish), I didn't have friends whose parents spoke different languages at home, and for whom it was normal to spend as much time in airports as you did with extended family because they live so far away. All of those things made me feel so different my experience growing up.
So insecure.
Going away to college saved me from all those insecurities. I never felt more interesting, and intriguing, and embraced, and genuinely cared about, as though people wanted to learn about me, Melissa. Not because I was "exotic." God, how I've come to hate the word exotic as a descriptive term. But, because we were all 18 years old, living away from home, and so I was just another student. I was the same. For once, for the first time, I blended in. I wasn't this exotic thing any more.
At home people wanted to know about why I looked different than them (read:not white), where my parents were from, and did I eat sushi....it was stupid shit like that, that I wasn't asked away at college. Perhaps it's because the people in and around universities seem to be more enlightened, more educated, more worldly, more "exotic" themselves. For whatever reason, I was delighted. I was finally amongst my peers. Not another that was along side.
Thinking about fear, and taking risk, I actually sat down and wrote a list of all the chances and all the opportunities that I have had that I was too afraid to take.
I'm sad to tell you, it's kind of a long list.
Like I mentioned before I'm not the biggest risk taker, I'm a realist & "have a good head on my shoulders."
But making that list, made me sad. There are so many chances and I should've taken, there are so many risks that we're not really even that risky, that I should've taken. I didn't take them only because for one reason or another I was too scared.
What if I didn't take the risk/the chance, and had been too afraid, to go far away to college?
Well, not only would I probably still be filled with an endless amount of internal insecurities, but I never would have met my husband.
We met freshman year in the dorms. The universe sent me this gift as a signal to show me that I was on the right path. It felt like the universe was like, "Hello! Finally girlfriend, here you go! Here's your husband."
Fear would have kept me from meeting so many amazing girl friends in college. The kind of girlfriends I always wished for in high school. The kind of girlfriends that lift you up, help you out, and tell you great things about yourself instead of tearing you down and playing manipulatively on your insecurities. I may never have attended grad school or started working in make up and cosmetics business without them. That alone led me down a whole different career path post college and continues to enrich my life in so many ways…
So basically the point of this post was for me to express how my fear hasn't actually been beneficial in my life. It's stolen experiences from me.
But going forward, I'm filled with a deep sense of fearlessness. I think motherhood does that to you. It brings you a true sense of bravery and trust within yourself. You carried a life, you can do anything.
I also think that fearlessness comes with getting older. Each and every year having more life under your belt, kicking more ass, and doing more things that scare yourself every day.
Live fearlessly moon mamas-
Go do something that scares you today, because we already know, we got this-
::::meanwhile moon mamas::::