I recently (as in a few days ago) moved to a new state. In the days leading up to the move, I was nothing short of terrified. We were excited and confident in our decision, but I still felt my brain reeling with everything that could possibly go wrong. I was reminded of the following piece I wrote in a creative non-fiction class in college.

When I was about to graduate, a professor reached out saying I had been nominated as a possible candidate to read something of mine at graduation. A bunch of students were nominated. We had to submit something, and they would pick two. I was a novel writer and didn’t feel I had anything short enough and good enough, but I decided to submit this piece since they asked. 

It was chosen. I met with that professor a couple times to fine tune it, and then I got to read it in front of a large audience at my graduation. It was a very cool (and scary) experience for me. A year or so later, a complete stranger reached out to me on facebook. Her mother had been diagnosed with cancer and she remembered hearing me read this piece and graduation and said it had been very powerful for her and she wanted to give it to her mom. I sent it to her, and I was reminded of the power of words to connect us and to illuminate the human experience. 

The Birth of Fear

The town sat on the edge of winter holding its breath. Everyone tensed for the exhale that would warm the frozen air and send dandelion seeds flitting across the Snake River valley. Spring appeared in every conversation and every glance. I was ready for it, but with the dawn of spring comes some undesirable things as well. Before leaves begin to form, the naked trees look stark without their frosty backdrop. The snow melts into dirty slush, and always there are bugs.

It was during this pause between seasons that I drove down an abandoned country road from my home in Sugar City to school one morning. A chilly dawn promising to be a warm day found me singing loudly with the radio. Some early morning Natalie Cole was just the thing to finish waking an exhausted college senior. I was in the middle of wishing I could sing better soul when a little brown moth shot up from somewhere on the dash. I squealed and frantically fumbled for the buttons to roll down the windows. I pressed all four of them until my hair was blowing all directions and my ears were popping from the air pressure. Meanwhile, the moth flew sporadically around me until it decided to retire to the back seat. When I looked up, I was on the shoulder next to a large irrigation ditch. I squealed again and jerked the steering wheel back towards the road and rolled up the windows. Heart hammering, I glanced repeatedly into the rearview mirror to see where the moth had landed, but it was hiding, waiting.

The shock wore off but an inactive fear filled the empty space. I knew the moth could surface at any moment. During one of my rear view glances, I noticed another car close to my tail. Good thing it was early morning or they probably would have reported me for DUI. I thought how stupid I would feel explaining to the cops that I hadn’t been drinking; there was a moth in my car. I could see some stern officer with a speckled mustache and a little belly raise a bushy eyebrow and say, “You almost drove into a ditch because of a moth?” It makes no sense, but in the same situation, I would do it again.

My big brother was terrified of moths when I was little. I found it funny that my grown brother who killed spiders with tissues would scream like a little girl at a moth-sighting and snap at anyone who failed to close the door quickly enough lest a moth should presume to enter the house. Once I said, “James! Moths aren’t scary. They don’t even do anything. They’re just ugly butterflies.” Now I know they are definitely not like butterflies. Something about their dusty wings and erratic flight patterns petrify me. One minute they’re circling the lamp across the room, and the next, they’re in my hair. It doesn’t seem like they even know where they’re going. Somewhere along the way, I learned to fear as well.

I can’t peg the moment it happened, but I constantly see evidence of growing fear. A few months ago, I sat in my living room talking to my sisters during a big family dinner. I adjusted my position to avoid the large spring sticking out of the cushion. Next to me, I heard my four-year-old nephew’s raspy little voice say, “Look, Jenni!” I turned to him and quickly contorted my body to get away as fast as I could. His hand was stretched out and covered with least six little black caterpillars.

“That’s gross, Jefferson!” I said forcefully, “Take them outside!” He looked puzzled. He hadn’t meant to scare me; he thought it was cool that he’d collected so many. I remembered being a little girl with poofy bangs and long braids, picking up caterpillars all afternoon. I put them in canning jars with some grass and poked holes in the lid with kitchen knives so they could breathe. I hoped they would turn to butterflies right before my eyes. They never did. They all died, and now I fear them as well.

As a child, I thought that adults weren’t afraid of anything. In my little girl fears, I comforted myself with the belief that I would outgrow them. I did, of course. I can stay home alone without misinterpreting every creak of the house as a burglar. I can lay in the dark without picturing Gollum sneaking up my stairs and peaking over the side of my bed. Some fears lie dormant, but I didn’t know that others would surface. I’m more afraid of bugs than I used to be. I’m more afraid of the future than I ever was as a 3rd grade dreamer. I’m more afraid of losing those I love than when I thought my family was invincible. If I had known adulthood would be so frightening, I might have skipped it.

What taught me to fear? As a child my fears were mostly irrational, but it’s different as an adult. Now that I know what debt and bankruptcy look like, now that I’ve death and suicide have become realities, now that I’m aware that, sometimes, houses burn down and children drown, now that I know what bad men do in dark alleys, I am afraid.

So, it surprised me that day at Porter Park, just before I was to leave on my mission, when my good friend wrinkled her freckled nose and said, “You’re the bravest person I know.” I raised one eyebrow as high as it would go. I was about to leave everything I knew and go to Spain for a year and a half. Of course, she could not know what was in my head. She couldn’t see the paralysis I felt when I thought of being in a foreign country and walking up to a complete stranger to try and use a language that wasn’t mine to convince them to believe in something they couldn’t see. She had no idea about the wrenching of my heart during those moments between sleeping and waking when the rational brain hasn’t kicked in yet. She couldn’t see that, behind my smile, I was anything but brave.

In that moment, it dawned on me. There are no brave people. All she could see was her best friend doing something she would be terrified to do. She didn’t know I was also afraid. How could she? I had never told her. All the people I think are brave have secret fears too. Bravery, as I had believed in it, doesn’t exist. There are only those who aren’t controlled by their fear. Far from comforting me, this thought terrified me. Believing there were many braver than I had always been a consolation. “There are some who wouldn’t be afraid of this,” I told myself in the face of every new experience or baseless fear. Knowing that I, with my deep and paralyzing worries, was the bravest person she knew made me feel caged and lonely.

This life gives birth to fear in everyone. Yet, humans keep on doing things. They keep on inventing and working and loving. No matter how many moths rise from the dash, they keep driving their cars. No matter how many divorces, they keep getting married. No matter how many rejections, they keep creating art. No matter how many deaths, they keep leaving their houses every day. There are no brave people, only frightened fighters. I swerved off the road at the flutter of moth wings, but I also stepped off the plane in Barcelona hoping faith would be stronger than fear because some things are worth it.