Le loup est un mammifère comme les autres

On Fear and Shame

racheladler:

When I think about my life, certain facts astound me.

It goes like this:

- I wanted to learn. But at eleven years old, when my father decided to teach me how to ride a bike, I was too embarrassed to be seen by my friends who all already knew how. So I said thanks but no thanks, wormed my way back into my room, and tucked my head into a book. I didn’t learn how to ride until I was twenty-one.

- In my late teens and early twenties, I was in a relationship that I never really wanted to be in. I said yes at eighteen because I wanted someone to buy cute anniversary gifts for, someone who would wander the back woods with me late at night. And I liked him as a person. But we didn’t really ever connect. And still, I stayed with him for years. I felt trapped, I felt discontented, but I was too afraid of the consequences. Of what people would think. Of what his face would look like when I said the words. Even, really, of the words themselves.

- I first visited Colorado when I was twenty-two, fell in love hard, and knew I had to live here some day. Still, it took me until I turned thirty to leave the East Coast. To move where I knew nobody? To a place where the streets weren’t also a historical map of my life? To a world so far from my friends and family? Terrifying.

- All throughout high school, I went to parties but rarely danced. Even when they were dance parties. Even when a really cute boy asked. Ninety percent of the time, I refused. The reason? I felt everybody staring at my body, noticing how awkwardly I moved, judging me.

- As a kid, I couldn’t even ask the man behind the counter for change. Any steop outside my daily routine - the people Iknew, the things that I’d learned were Acceptable - scared the shit out of me. Around anyone who I believed to be “cooler” than me, my body would tense up and my vocal cords would seemingly disappear. And of course, there were boys. I knew they would never like me back, that they’d make fun of me if they knew I liked them. It was better not to exist to them than to face that hurt - to seem mean and above love than to risk opening my mouth to speak.

What it all means? Sure, I eventually learned how to ride a bike. I finally broke up with that boy. I live in Colorado now. And these days, I dance everywhere - not only at parties. And I’m definitely not afraid of people anymore. (In fact, someone recently called me an extrovert and I was floored. But I guess I’ve made that transformation.)

And still, none of this excuses the lives I didn’t live. I was twelve and stuck at home while my friends rode in circles around and through the town. I was nineteen on New Year’s ‘99, eating pizza in a living room and holding hands woith the wrong boy when I could’ve been out laughing with my friends, meeting new people. At twenty-three, I sat in a gray Manhattan office staring at the brick wall across the street, while my dreams were dancing through the Rockies. I spent hours of my adolescence scared and pasted against a wall as the music pounded all around me. For years, I let my insecurities rule out so many new friends, so many adventures.

This isn’t about regret. Regret is futile. I can’t change any of this. I can only take something from it all and move forward. And I take this:

The things of which I am most afraid are often the same things I most desire and the things that will make my life come alive. When my heart starts to pound inside of me, when I imagine my own anxieties as everyone else’s judgments, when I feel my voice beginning to fade away, I know I’m on to something good. It’s still difficult, but I’m learning to ignore that persistent clawing inside of me and just go for it.

It would’ve felt kind of creepy to reblog this without saying anything about it, but I have nothing to add … so.