But the idea was that bad stuff happens.  People upset you.  Negative thoughts get thunk.  Fear sits at the foot of most of our passion beds every morning..sitting there..waiting..in my mind it looks like Gollum from LOTR.  "Good morning, my precious."  EW!

So I'm driving and this Biggie song pops into my head, and then so does Erykah Badu's version of the same lyric:  There's gonna be a lot of slow singin' and flower bringin'...  Over & over again.  Slow singing.  Flower bringing.  Slow.  Singing.  Flower.  Bringing.  Toooooo...?  What?

TO THE FUNERAL OF MY FEARS!  DUH!  

But no.  Fear is gonna be there.  It's chemical.  It's natural.  It's learned.  It's practiced.  Why do I want to kill fear?  How will I know when to not turn down a dark street?  And how will I know how badly I want something if my gut doesn't stir up with questions about failure, and embarrassment?  How will I be able to recognize that there will be consequences?  

No.  Live on fear!  I luh ya, papi!  

But what must die is the fear of fearing mistakes.  My mom and I were hanging out the other day and I just turned to her with my 27-year-old self and said:  "I'm in the mood to make some mistakes."  She smiled and said "I have a feeling that this didn't just happen to me."  (In reference to some sucky stuff that she's been going through and the effect on our family.)  I said:  "Why not?"  We went back to watching t.v.)

What I'm trying to say is that the fear will go on.  If I get married and have kids I will fear that harm will come to them.  If I eff up at work, I will fear losing my job.  I'm not gonna say no to my inherent being.  But what I am going to say no to is avoiding applying my creativity to normal tasks.  Or avoiding sharing my opinion.  And I'm definitely not going to hide from opportunities and advancing in my life.

So bye-bye being afraid of being afraid and hello error. Hello "whoopsie daisies" and "my bads". I hope I say you a lot and learn from you and that more often than not, I look up happy about all the dope stuff you bring into my life because had I been afraid of you then I wouldn't have asked or tried it in the first place! :)

It's me and you fear.  I'm gonna move ahead and carry you on my back while you look around frantically trying to help me by stopping me pointing things out that I otherwise would miss and not be able to prepare for. You might succeed sometimes and you might fail, but I encourage you to speak up!   I need you.  And you need me, but I should warn you that as we walk my legs will get stronger and my hearts endurance will grow so eventually you won't be as much of a help because I will be so strong that I don't even notice you're back there.   That's when you'll have to speak louder and be selective about what you actually have to say because I won't turn so quickly to see what you say!

And suddenly.  That's all that I have to say about that!  #forest Gump voice

Love,

Melissa