The Fear You Won't Fall
“And I know it’s easy to say But it’s harder to feel this way”
I successfully kept a daily blog for the first (and only other time) a few summers ago. I wasn’t sure how to go about writing a blog so I made myself rules for each post. I don’t remember all of the rules, but among them were that in every post I had to include a picture of myself (I had just seen a pretty cool article about a guy who took daily selfies and could see his transformation little by little over time) and that I had to share something new about myself. The biggest and most important rule was that I had to write completely without emotional words. That’s pretty weird right? Usually our personal writing is all about emotion or at least includes it somewhere in there. Well there are a number of reasons I wanted to try this experiment. First, there was the complete and total foreignness of it to me. As I’ve mentioned, I wear my heart on my sleeve. Well when I think about the lens through which I see people and the world, it would be emotion. More than that, and more so back when I was 19, I made decisions based almost exclusively on emotion (and ignored my pretty stellar ability to rationalize and use logic), which was exciting, tiring and could be dramatic (and I hated drama). So it seemed like practicing to sideline those emotions for a month and a half or so could be a helpful experiment. The main reason I didn’t want to write with emotions though had more to do with my personal life. I was going through a pretty rough time in a relationship that was, for all intents and purposes, over. I just couldn’t accept it and so I was still awkwardly in it. He was in a different state for the summer. He tried to break up with me and I thought, rightfully, that I deserved more than a phone call. This guy had spent most of my freshman year trying to boo me up and here he was throwing that away after a month of the summer apart. I wasn’t about to have that. Especially not after I’d taken a chance on him over someone I else really liked who wasn’t a mess. To complicate things, I also still liked that guy and was talking to him everyday. Meanwhile, my “boyfriend” and I had decided not to talk until school started and we could talk in person. All of this is to say that I wanted to be able to write and share, but not have my “boyfriend” know what I was feeling. Also not the best reason, but I was 19, frustrated and confused. At least writing helped. I thought of the song, “The Fear You Won’t Fall,” yesterday and it reminded me of my blog. I titled my blog “Afraid of Not Falling” after hearing and loving this song. The reason I named the blog after this song is a bit hazy to me now, but I’m positive it was some kind of angsty reason. I think I had two main reasons. One had to do with my fear that I was unloving and unloveable. Both of those seem ridiculous now. The second part had to do with my feeling that I was coasting through life. Well we know that I wasn’t having an easy life personally, but academically, (by college) socially and professionally, I was doing pretty well. I felt guilty because I thought I should be trying harder. For me, there was a fear of trying harder and failing. There was also a greater fear of not failing. What if I did so well that other things started to happen for me. What if I lost myself? What if I lost my free time? What if I didn’t get to see my friends or talk to my parents? What if I changed for the worse? These questions and the potential negative outcomes scared and scare me. Three years ago when I was in an extremely unhealthy (read: emotionally abusive) relationship, I chose to delete every single post from that blog. My ex found those posts and started to use them against me. He used them to make me feel small. He used them to accuse of having feelings for or cheating on him with guys I didn’t even talk to anymore. And so I did something that I completely regret. I deleted the posts. The blog and it’s skeleton are still there. But everything else is gone. I wish I still had those posts. There were a lot of happy memories that filled those pages. Memories of working in a restaurant as a host. Memories of working at the LGBT center in New York. Memories of my first Pride. Best friend memories. My last memories with my mom. And they’re gone. I know I mostly talked about my day to day and didn’t use much emotion (to be fair I expressed positive emotion sometimes), but those memories would trigger the feels for me. Those memories could have been used to help me piece together that summer. Those memories could have been the basis for a chapter of a memoir that I want to write eventually. Now they’re just that: memories. And while I have a pretty strong memory, I can’t remember everything perfectly. I remember the general feelings of that summer. But memories can be tainted by those feelings and our desires. An objective account of that summer could be helpful. So I urge you to never delete or erase your writing or art (physically or metaphorically) from your life. Not for anybody. Those are your creations. They’re your opportunities to express yourself as you see yourself and the world. They are reminders of who and where you’ve been. They’re your fears, sadness, anger, happiness, excitement, hopes and dreams. They are you.
