Stop and smell... the fear?
I've been walking around for days (probably weeks) thinking to myself... I want to blog. I want to talk about something. I want to learn something. I want to start a topic on my blog that'll keep me... well, focused on blogging. Because yeah, I never know what to blog about. I mean my life seems like it's flying by these days with all these changes and action items and to-do lists and then I sleep and the alarm goes off and it starts all over again. Which makes it feel like one day blurs into another and then after about a week of this I think to myself... where were the roses I was supposed to stop and smell?
But that's the way life goes now in this digital age. It's all about 24x7 and being accessible all the time and never taking a minute to just... stop. Oh what I'd give for it to just pause for a bit (in a nice relaxing sort of pause kind of way)... and then... when you do force yourself to pull the emergency break and stop for a spell... that's when it happens. The fear of missing something... something big, something so odoriferous that it has the potential to outshine the smelly roses by a landslide.
Oh look, I wrote the word I hate to look at: Fear.
It's not that I don't appreciate what fear contributes to my life. It's just... well, fear is both extremely useful and irritatingly useless. It pumps us up and pushes us to give our best work, then at other times it wraps us tight in a patented I-Love-Me jacket (you know the ones that have those arms that wrap all the way around your body and buckle into each other) and leaves you in that oh so enjoyable (not) catatonic state where you're doing nothing but staring at the television screen watching reruns of SpongeBob praying that in the next 11 minute episode you'll find the answers to your very own coveted meaning of life, liberty, and the pursuit of crabby patties.
*sigh* Damn--re-reading what I wrote was downright depressing. lol, for a normally effervescent, upbeat, optimistic muse like me... that's disturbing. And probably a result of working on my current WIP, because... yeah it has some dark parts to it. See, I have this hero--his name is Chassyn "Chase" Maitland--who has had a really tough way to go.
I first met this hero (and yeah, of all my heroes he is my ultimate favorite and has held my heart for a long time--probably because he saved me from a dark path I once faced) back in the late 90s. At the time I first met Chase he was... my mister perfect. He was sweet, kind, funny, patient, affectionate, and a do-er. There was never any obstacle to tall for him to climb. He never backed away from a challenge. He was one of those quiet, noble types that made my inner hopeless romantic sigh and mutter to herself... ohmiword, if Chase were real he'd so be married to a complete and utter bitch and never, ever, consider turning his back on the mother of his children. Because--yeah, that's right, you guessed it--more than a decade ago, Chase didn't have demons. He was the perfect hero for the perfect dream. (And he never had to raise his voice to be it--or be an asshole.)
Then life happened and I hit revision land for his story. I sat and chatted with my perfect hero and... tears--I shed tears. I swear I could have cried an effing river of tears when I learned of all the hardships my perfect hero had had thrown at him and his perfect life. Then he told me the last hardship and... I cried again. Because it so devastated this particular character that I refused to go further with his story until I spent hours in front of the TV searching for the meaning of life in random Phineas and Ferb episodes.
It didn't matter that I knew and know where this character will end up. It doesn't matter that I know how to vanquish his demons. It's that he expressed to me for the very first time in all my years of knowing him... his fear. And it impacted me more than I should probably ever admit. His fear was so strong that it grabbed me by the throat and held me captive in the same dark place that I'd faced so many years ago. And rather than learning from his example, I allowed the fear to overwhelm me and drive me to the couch to zone out and enter the numb zone. The one where no feelings, no nothing can ever reach you. Where you stare at the TV watching nothing of meaning and the roses bloom, then a wind breaks apart the beautiful fragrant flower and scatters the silky petals all over your nosy neighbor's yard instead of yours.
So yeah, I hate the word fear. But as a writer, I have to appreciate it. And yeah I have to thank Chase for being there for me and now I have to be there for him... because I can and do promise him it'll work out in the end. But unfortunately I can't tell him what he wants to know most of all right now: How and why it'll work out. I mean I know, but he can't know because... may the powers that be forgive me for saying this... because he has to walk through his fears on his own and face every damn one of them so he can come out on the other side a changed and full formed (and functional) hero.
So hang in there, Chase. It'll work out. I promise. Trust me. Please. I won't let you down and I'll be there for you just like you were there for me. Pinky promise swear.
~Elijana
But that's the way life goes now in this digital age. It's all about 24x7 and being accessible all the time and never taking a minute to just... stop. Oh what I'd give for it to just pause for a bit (in a nice relaxing sort of pause kind of way)... and then... when you do force yourself to pull the emergency break and stop for a spell... that's when it happens. The fear of missing something... something big, something so odoriferous that it has the potential to outshine the smelly roses by a landslide.
Oh look, I wrote the word I hate to look at: Fear.
It's not that I don't appreciate what fear contributes to my life. It's just... well, fear is both extremely useful and irritatingly useless. It pumps us up and pushes us to give our best work, then at other times it wraps us tight in a patented I-Love-Me jacket (you know the ones that have those arms that wrap all the way around your body and buckle into each other) and leaves you in that oh so enjoyable (not) catatonic state where you're doing nothing but staring at the television screen watching reruns of SpongeBob praying that in the next 11 minute episode you'll find the answers to your very own coveted meaning of life, liberty, and the pursuit of crabby patties.
*sigh* Damn--re-reading what I wrote was downright depressing. lol, for a normally effervescent, upbeat, optimistic muse like me... that's disturbing. And probably a result of working on my current WIP, because... yeah it has some dark parts to it. See, I have this hero--his name is Chassyn "Chase" Maitland--who has had a really tough way to go.
I first met this hero (and yeah, of all my heroes he is my ultimate favorite and has held my heart for a long time--probably because he saved me from a dark path I once faced) back in the late 90s. At the time I first met Chase he was... my mister perfect. He was sweet, kind, funny, patient, affectionate, and a do-er. There was never any obstacle to tall for him to climb. He never backed away from a challenge. He was one of those quiet, noble types that made my inner hopeless romantic sigh and mutter to herself... ohmiword, if Chase were real he'd so be married to a complete and utter bitch and never, ever, consider turning his back on the mother of his children. Because--yeah, that's right, you guessed it--more than a decade ago, Chase didn't have demons. He was the perfect hero for the perfect dream. (And he never had to raise his voice to be it--or be an asshole.)
Then life happened and I hit revision land for his story. I sat and chatted with my perfect hero and... tears--I shed tears. I swear I could have cried an effing river of tears when I learned of all the hardships my perfect hero had had thrown at him and his perfect life. Then he told me the last hardship and... I cried again. Because it so devastated this particular character that I refused to go further with his story until I spent hours in front of the TV searching for the meaning of life in random Phineas and Ferb episodes.
It didn't matter that I knew and know where this character will end up. It doesn't matter that I know how to vanquish his demons. It's that he expressed to me for the very first time in all my years of knowing him... his fear. And it impacted me more than I should probably ever admit. His fear was so strong that it grabbed me by the throat and held me captive in the same dark place that I'd faced so many years ago. And rather than learning from his example, I allowed the fear to overwhelm me and drive me to the couch to zone out and enter the numb zone. The one where no feelings, no nothing can ever reach you. Where you stare at the TV watching nothing of meaning and the roses bloom, then a wind breaks apart the beautiful fragrant flower and scatters the silky petals all over your nosy neighbor's yard instead of yours.
So yeah, I hate the word fear. But as a writer, I have to appreciate it. And yeah I have to thank Chase for being there for me and now I have to be there for him... because I can and do promise him it'll work out in the end. But unfortunately I can't tell him what he wants to know most of all right now: How and why it'll work out. I mean I know, but he can't know because... may the powers that be forgive me for saying this... because he has to walk through his fears on his own and face every damn one of them so he can come out on the other side a changed and full formed (and functional) hero.
So hang in there, Chase. It'll work out. I promise. Trust me. Please. I won't let you down and I'll be there for you just like you were there for me. Pinky promise swear.
~Elijana
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