It's Not Really About a Dolphin and a Blonde Girl

"I sat for a long time, uncomfortable with the person I had been 

and the person I was finally becoming..." 

A friend told me recently that it would happen when I was ready for it to happen. My quick, knee-jerk response was a defiant, "I am ready. It's just blah-blah-blah-excuse-excuse-excuse..." It was only later that I realized she was right. Absolutely, unequivocally right. Dammit. I'm not ready. Obviously. If I was, well...

I would have found my way out of this limbo I'm mired in. One foot in the past, one in the present, and facing the future. Unwilling to go backwards, discontented enough of the status quo to crave a change, but wholly unable to move forward into a future that so clearly awaits me.

I could ask which one. Which future? Where? With whom? And how? I stand at the proverbial crossroads where path and vision meet, and the signpost has far too many arrows. This way for that. That way for this. Or here. Or there. Or... Yes, I am blessed with options - I always have options - but...I am unable to choose. 

It's fear. All of it. Every last bit of it. Oh, I talk a good game about being fearless and sometimes I think I'm almost there. Almost. Then a friend sends one text message and I spend the next week cursing her wisdom and berating myself for not acknowledging it sooner. F***ing fear.

I am stuck in a calm harbor of my own making. I refuse to venture out because of a zillion things I could tell you about if you have a minute. An old dog, aging parents, job, debt, writing, an ugly series of what-ifs. A concern that maybe, just maybe I'm not as strong as I think I am. And God damn, what if I'm right? What if I'm not strong enough? Hello, just a week ago, I was convinced I was fearless then that illusion was shattered and jagged shards spread to kingdom come. If strength goes the way of fearlessness and I have to stare into the abyss one more time? Yeah... I can't predict that outcome.

Want to know something ironic? Every morning I wake to the same alarm on my iPhone - "Believer" by Imagine Dragons. You know the line - my favorite line - "I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea"? It's all bullshit. I'm not at sea. I'm at anchor and I go ashore when I see the first gray cloud or feel a small gust of wind. I'm a coward.

~~

So I wrote most of that above last night. I wasn't happy with it, both the writing and the content. I went to bed unsettled and a bit anxious, if I'm honest. Then the Fourth of July fireworks at Zilker Park started and the dog got nervous. I laid awake a long minute before deciding to take a Benadryl to help me sleep. At some point the booming stopped, the dog calmed, and I slept. And started dreaming.

In one, I was somewhere in the coastal UK (that Wimbledon started Monday might have entered into my subconscious) and, even though a storm was brewing, I found myself on a wooden speed boat tied to a dock with a middle aged guy wearing a beige fisherman's sweater, his blond hair whipping in the wind. We had to leave, but we couldn't go one way because the waves were too high; the other way - straight ahead - well, there was a dolphin (I couldn't make this stuff up) and he was concerned we'd hit in. In the end, he gunned it forward - toward the dolphin - but by that point I was on the beach and I refused to enter into the raging surf to get on the boat. I turned and walked off.

In another, a friend was chiding me for my cowardice. At that exact moment, another friend who I haven't seen in months (Keep in mind I seldom see faces, but I saw hers...) , stuck her head through a doorway and said sarcastically, (Again, I couldn't make this stuff up), "Yeah, Stacee, go ahead. Date the blonde girl with curly hair." To which the other friend in the dream said something like, "See? I told you." I'm pretty sure the blonde girl is a euphemism or a symbol because seriously what the f***?!?

~~

Even my subconscious knows I'm a coward. I really do have good reason. Seriously. Let's just go with that. Yes, it's been years, but it's still a risk. Change. Leaving one place for another. Standing alone. Facing the unknown. Many of you ask why I travel so much and always alone. It's practice. Every moment. From the time I pass through the TSA checkpoint at Austin-Bergstrom until I see the "Welcome to the United States" sign and clear customs, I must be fearless. I can't cower or cry. I can't worry about the abyss. I have to face what comes with confidence. Yes, occasionally I have to fake it until I make it, but I always seem to make it. Eventually. 

And maybe that's what I need to fall back on. I've never really failed (except thankfully that one time). Regardless of how I feel, how scared I might be, how tenuous my sanity might seem, I find a way to find a way. Ok, some of that is because I don't allow myself a choice. It's up or up, like it or like it. Day-to-day, I mean. The big stuff, though... That requires more. A lot more.

"You do not wish to be as you were, but you are not entirely who you will become.

It is difficult to be a stranger to yourself, is it not?"

And as good as I am on my own, as much as I like it, need it, crave it... I wonder. That's all it takes. A little wonder and I'm paralyzed. And that's not good. Let's be honest, brutally honest, here. If I refuse to take a step - emotionally, spiritually, physically, geographically, or all of the above - I will deteriorate, decline, die (figuratively speaking, in this case). In other words, I will fail. I will never become the person I can be, should be. My dreams will come to nothing. I will never be extraordinary. And I will be like far too many people taking up space on the planet.

That means I have only one choice. I need to buck the f*** up. What do they say? Everything you want lies on the other side of fear? It does. It absolutely does. So I need to find a way through it, past it, over it, under it, around it. What comes will come.

"Do not waste... Eat the oakcake or give it to the dog. Do not crumble it to bits."

In other words, I must take the boat out into the storm, risk hitting the dolphin, and date the euphemistic blonde girl. At least that's what my subconscious tells me. I'll let you know how all that works out. 

***All of the quotes above are from the Lady Julia Grey series of books by Deanna Raybourn. If you want something largely inconsequential to read - other than my novels, I mean - look her up.***