Embracing the Fear

I’m a well-known wuss. I hate horror movies or haunted houses or television shows that show dead people or actual dead people or vampires or zombies or poltergeists or basically anything in between.  I’m nightmare prone and basically an anxiety attack waiting to happen.  Which is why it is a Very Bad Thing that I accidently watched an episode of Law and Order SVU yesterday afternoon.  

Some people need caffeine for all-nighters. All I need is 20 minutes of the kind of show that grandmothers marathon like it’s their jobs.

So as I lay in bed last night, staring at the ceiling and picturing all the ways someone could kill me, I came to a conclusion: sometimes having limits is ok. Knowing what you like and what you enjoy isn’t always about being afraid to leave your comfort zone: sometimes it’s about knowing yourself and protecting yourself.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about who I am and who I want to be. The things about myself that make me proud, and the things I want to grow and the things I want to change and develop and evolve. I want to be the best me I can be. A me I’m proud of. I want to do great things and inspire others, but mostly 

I want to inspire myself. I want to be an amalgamation of positive traits and positive energy and positive thoughts.  I want to be happy and comfortable and smart and more good synonyms then Webster himself has to offer.

An accurate representation of me trying to watch a scary movie.

But I want to embrace the negatives too. To understand my limits. To be ok with the bits of me that are a little less than ok. I don’t want to be embarrassed by not being able to handle things. I want to ask for help and not feel ashamed. I’ve never felt bad about giving help, why should I feel bad about receiving it?

I’m scared of letting myself feel vulnerable. But I am. I’m messy and confused and finding my way. I’m afraid of ghost stories and overly emotional and sometimes (or always) I take things way too personally. I’m human.

And if that means I can’t watch Law and Order, so be it. I’ll skip the horror movies so I can sleep and be ok with being a little bit not ok. It’s a process. A hard one, to be a sure, but one I’m working on. Maybe part of growing is realizing that there are times when you can’t grow.