In Living Color

In my coursework and in the course of my own therapy, there's a lot of talk about leaning into the fear. That somehow, the lean, albeit painful, produces the most color and vibrancy all while adrenaline runs strong and you resist the temptation to backpedal.

During my 31st year, I did a lot of standing upright. Definitely skipped around with the wind and danced with the sun here and there, but there wasn't much leaning. In reading through my journals of the past year, I noticed this. . . noticed the entry from March 3 looking an awful lot like the entry from November 21. Same complaints, same despondency, same hopes and freckled promises. ("I will lose more weight." "I will spend less time online.") By the time I got through the first month, I was tired. It was like reading an dictionary with the etymology of boring on repeat. . . read over and over again.

I am not being hard on myself. I think 31 was a hiatus for me. A dangerous one for sure, but led me to the desire to shake things up. Add color, read my journal like it was a novel of more newness than stagnation. Lean into the fear; of not being able to do it well enough, of failing completely, of hopelessness that things really can change.

So adding color becomes the focus, be it a new painting in our dining room or a new bike route. I want to kayak, and ride horses again. I want to visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens and spend all day taking photos, finally visit the Buddhist Temple on our block and buy produce at Farmer's Markets. I have a cooking class scheduled and write everyday. I told my friend Nikki, "I blog so infrequently because it's important to me that the writing is good." She must have giggled on the other side of the text and replied, "If I waited for that, I would never blog."

All of these wants are low-risk leans but they add up to the biggest lean of them all: regaining confidence, or adding to what exists. It comes from trying and succeeding or trying and at least having tried.