I tend to be hyper-vigilant, which is characteristic of people who did not have critical needs met in childhood. We’re always watching, always looking for the next source of trouble. I would not say I qualify for PTSD honors–I was mostly safe as a kid, I just didn’t feel safe–but I’m a standard deviation or two from the mean when it comes to scanning the horizon and watching the sky.
I am also fretful, though again, according to ye old DSM, I’m not quite into the OCD zone. My mental wheels get spinning, and on a good day, this means I have scenes to write. On the other days… how many ways can the world come to an end? Can my world come to an end? Lots and lots.
I was afraid of the dark from as far back as I can remember. Terrified to the point of wetting my bed rather than crossing the room to turn on a light switch. In early adulthood, I feared I would never pass the bar when I had a baby to support and all those loans to pay back.
I was afraid my daughter would be taken from me (talk about vicarious anxiety, Madame Child Welfare Attorney). Afraid I’d be so destitute, I’d have to go live with my folks, who’d retired to a location I abhorred. Afraid I’d be disbarred and tossed in jail for incompetent lawyering. Afraid I will end up wearing all the clothes I own, guarding a rusty shopping cart full of sodden books down along the highway, my pets all confiscated by the authorities, and an empty tin cup in my hand.
My fears are rooted in reality. Every parent has bad moments. The recession hit my finances very hard. My lawyering was imperfect at times, and destitution and homelessness in old age are happening with increasing frequency. Some of my fears were more justified than others, some more rational than others, but they had a hold on me either way.
Compared to people living in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, Rwanda, and many other violence-saturated locations, my fears are laughable. Compared to people living with cancer, same. Compared to people whose children have been taken by the authorities, same again. I am a mere tadpole in the Coping With Fear waters, while others have had to grow their courage to leviathan proportions. I hope I am never called upon to join their ranks.
But if I am challenged to be braver, I have a place to start. I am no longer afraid of the dark (most nights). I have had to make some hard decisions to get through hard times (waves to the sainted memory of Delray the Wonder Pony). I have been broken-hearted, broke, and broken, and yet, here I am with all my dings and dents, still mostly enjoying life (most days). I have some courage. I have love. If owning a copy of Darius become a criminal offense, well, so be it. I might be facing my first rodeo, but not my first ride. I will trot around until I find a light switch or two, even if it scares me to initiate the search.
What makes you brave?
I’ve always thought that being afraid of bad things happening indicated both a strong imagination and a lot of knowledge about what can go wrong. If you’re not aware of something, you’re not likely to worry about it. Yes, I am also hyper-vigilant about both personal safety and financial security. On the other hand, my partner tends to think things will just work out (and he tells me not to worry so much). It drives me nuts that he’s usually right. I don’t know if it comes from my being an eldest child and him being in the middle (though there was a big enough gap from his two older siblings, he was practically an eldest child also) or him being a California kid and me moving every couple of years since my Dad was in the Air Force but it’s a big difference in how we see the world. Some days I wonder how we’ve managed to stay together for over 40 years (obviously I was a baby when we met).
Anyway, I rarely feel brave but I generally do what needs to be done somehow mostly by giving myself internal lectures until I do it (not necessarily a recommendation on how to live one’s life).
Many big hugs to you, Grace. I too did not feel safe in childhood. That gives us an innate sense of distrust and pessimism, science says. I’m working hard to re-route that automatic thinking. It’s so hard, and it’s difficult to not be resentful of poor family dynamics that induced those patterns.
There have been times when your stories have made me brave. So thank you.
Both my fears and my bravery stems from the Love of My Life, my 38-year old son. After a very rough marriage to his father, we left when he was 8; at HIS insistence. I was guilty of “parentification” in that he needed to step up way too young to take care of business; learned to cook, clean, balance the checkbook; all before the grand old age of 10. Brilliant and gifted, he graduated from Notre Dame; became an actor; toured; and has just recently endured a broken marriage and a diagnosis (at last) of bipolar 2. Still he perseveres; and has a 5-year old daughter; the second love of my life. So often, how he fares is in direct relation to my fears for him! P.S. I could NOT love Lord Julian anymore that I do now. Or you – Queen Grace!
I don’t know if you like hugs but I want to give you the biggest hug after your post. My story is different but I have a world class startle reflex that is impervious to any reparenting efforts. Like you I have very high expectations of myself and am way more aware of faults and failings than accomplishments. Who says you or anyone has to be good or excellent at everything. You have given me an incalculable benefit in your writing. Your stories are a safe place for me to retreat from various woes and challenges. You celebrate values and virtues I try to embody but fall short. I think the most we can expect of ourselves is to show up and fight the good fight. I would bet that every day in every role you’ve cared about the outcome and cared about the individuals. Bravo. Celebrate the wonderfulness of you despite the pain, fears and heartache. Remember how much pleasure and comfort and encouragement you have given so many of us.
My church is a very positive place for me and reminds me of who I want to be and what I want to try and do in the world. Your stories do the same. Plus you are brave.
So often our early childhoods are the basis of fears. That’s the case for me. I craved and worked ferociously to gain financial stability; I don’t trust easily anymore; I was afraid to try new skills. Yet, I took career risks and succeeded. Perseverance might be the key.
Grace, I think you just described me when writing about hyper-vigilance and fears. I am not particularly afraid of the dark though. As to what makes me brave, I think stepping up and saying or doing the right thing when I know there may be negative consequences for it. Finding happiness with what I have. Embracing “good enough”. I can’t say I am excellent at maintaining those states of mind.
Who gets credit for the saying “do not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good?” I can’t say why I added that quote but it has helped me let go of finding fault everywhere.
I’m so busy surviving these days, that curling up with “Jules” (thank you for the ARC!) is all I have energy for. There seems to be a level of exhaustion & exasperation I hit that overrides fear, gives me a very warped & definitely graveyard sense of the ridiculous, & off I go to ride a forlorn hope against the latest insanity life offers, laughing wildly at the chaotic unfairness of it all.
Oddly enough this exasperated exhaustion seems to be working for now. Who knew a deviant sense of humor was a survival skill?
Sitting for the third day in a ICU hospital room after my husband had a serious series of “it’ll just get better” until even he admitted it wasn’t, I find that being brave comes more easily when I let in some help. I like to be able to do it all, so that’s hard, but recognizing that others are willing to take the reins and stand with me helps me to be braver.
My great fear is that you will never get around to giving St Didier his own story and book ! I love all your books, my very favourite is The Duke’s disaster read so many times.
I heartily connected with all the fears you listed. Also count me in in the collective hug sending group please. I would add a list of my own just as long, but that’s not what you asked for. I too had a very shaky environment in my childhood. Then whenever there happened to be something good happen, some triumph, my mother and/or grandmother would put a big wet blanket over it (I assume from their mid-West depression era, dower religious backgrounds,) saying this won’t last, don’t get your hopes up, (don’t let yourself be too happy, bad times are right around the corner.) Finding a more hopeful religious community when I was a young adult helped.
Meeting and marrying my rock of a husband gave me bravery. I was able to do things I would normally be scared of doing because I knew he was there to protect me. Like reaching out to a homeless person-why would that make me fearful? No idea.
The quote from Due about not letting perfect get in the way of good, is so fabulous. I’ve been a perfectionist most of my life. I was obese from childhood on, the only fat girl in grade school and middle school. When I was a kid they didn’t widely have available metabolic studies if there were any, my family wouldn’t have been able to afford it. When you have that going against you you strive for the absolute every possible way you can find to just blend in to the crowd and give no one a legitimate reason to find you different. I kept that attitude for years and years, decades and decades. I had to be the best at what I chose to do. Now I am to old to achieve perfection on any given day and I have to let good enough be enough. That feeling was not come to easily. It took my BFF and some therapy to help me get over what aging has done to my plans.
Success breeds success, as they say. It just takes some of us longer to recognize that. When you worked so hard to just make it. When you still have that wet blanket waiting for you in the wings. Some of my bravery has come from my own efforts, some from the support of others. I have to remind myself very often that we need other people, and I cannot do it alone. So I am braver than I used to be, but still have to work at it for different reasons now.
Oh, and Grace, thank you so much for the ARCs I have gotten from your blog. I am so in love with the Lord Julian series. I now want the audios for that series.
Oh my gosh, Darius is probably the book of yours I’ve reread the most often of all of those I have reread, at least once a year. I obviously love that story so very much. Probably most of your books would land me in jail. If they don’t erase my library I could squirrel it away on my phone…if they let you keep that in prison.
I don’t know about brave but since 2016 my husband has had difficult medical issues. Surgeries, hospitalizations, nursing homes and more. I’ve learned more about the medical field than I ever wanted to know. Getting through it all was a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Repeatedly.
As a fellow child of unmet needs that were usually more emotional than physical, I am sending you my biggest internet hugs.
What makes me brave is my belief that God must walk with us through these valleys and shadows, and my hopes for the opposite side of the what-ifs. What if we resist, and we help? What if we are courageous, and it makes a difference? What if we have heart, and overcome heartlessness?
“Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Take what comes.” So my handbag weighs as much as a toddler and requires a seatbelt.
Wow. I left Bozeman Montana after three years of increasing cold in the early 90s at the age of 47. Next thing I knew I was living on the street in Sedona, Arizona, and sleeping in my car. I believed it was part of my so-called spiritual path, and dealt with it from day to today. I had extraordinary experiences for 4 years. Sometimes I’d be given some work, I did some freelance writing and photography, and also was obliged to ask for food and support frequently. Lovely things occurred. I remember one time in the local super market I went to the deli and asked the manager for something or other. I had $.32 to my name and he gave me a huge portion of whatever it was I asked for and charged me $.32. Another time I asked someone in a somewhat similar position for some help. He opened his wallet, took out the five singles he had and gave me three of them. One time I had Some money, went to the store and purchased food to prepare. I took it to the local coffee shop where I had access to the kitchen and fixed myself something to eat. Next thing I know someone walked in who was also a kind of street person. There I was with my meal, and it was obvious he was hungry, so I divided it in half and we both ate. The experience was: when something is shared in Love, both parties are satisfied with whatever there is. It was a lovely lesson and experience.
The whole four years was mystical and magical, and many terrifying and wonderful things happened. The most essential part of the whole story was the fact that I was shown that I would be taken care of in one way or another, no matter what things appeared to be.
I spent the last two years in Europe, mostly doing Workaway, and was suddenly catapulted back to Bozeman, Montana, where I definitely didn’t want to be in the middle of winter.
I was greeted with a very nasty flu bug and spent the first three weeks of the month recuperating, while at the same time dealing with recovering my Medicare, the major portion of my very meager income, and discovering that my vehicle needed a shocking amount of money to get registered, insured and become functional again. Since I’ve been well-schooled in vulnerable need, I’ve taken out my begging bowl and making the rounds. I trust that what is necessary will show up. Somehow Life always works itself out even if we have no idea how that’s gonna happen.
Hi! Travel, curiosity, and opposition sometimes make me brave.
I discovered the Lord Julian books a few days ago. Thank you for writing them! I’ve been a hardcore bookworm all my life, but recently my ADHD has worsened with the onset of “The Peri M” and I haven’t had enough focus to read a book in months. It’s been hard to rest or relax. The 1st Lord Julian book pulled me right in, and gave me interest in a Written World again: what a relief and a joy! Thank you. A family member of mine has dealt with the “transient global nasties”. Thank you for writing so skillfully about the human mind and heart.
I have constant low (and sometimes skyrocketingly high) levels of anxiety, especially at 2am when whatever problem is uppermost in my brain decides to get on that squeaky hamster wheel and torment me. I can beat back some of the anxiety by knitting, baking, or reading (or often rereading)something that will assure me of goodness in the world – your books do that for me. I am so grateful to have your writing in my life.