Courage
09/30/2012 09:05 p.m.
The assignment read: “Think of a time when you needed courage.” Funny, how I read/interpreted it as “think of a time when you were scared.” Those are two different concepts. You don’t have to be fearful to need courage, sometimes you just need courage to raise your head in the morning, get out of bed and face the mundane, the day to day give and take of life, but it doesn't mean that you are fearful, though you could be.
Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a child who became a woman who had a child who also became a woman who also had a child…..
Right now I am finding that I need courage to put these words on paper. I write eloquently in my head, and let it all disappear before I have a chance to put pen to page or fingers to keys. Even the start of this particular writing was different in my head as to how it is coming out now. I swear I will invent a tool to take the brain waves from my head and put it into words on paper. It would make life easier. I hate the struggle, the actual act of putting words on paper, though I love words and the formations they make when put together.
Kerry Cohen wrote of being afraid to hurt others when she wrote her memoir. I think I’m afraid to hurt myself; to actually admit to myself I am not who I pretend to be. I romanticize my life. I live it as though I care little about what people think about me, and in reality I don’t think I do. But, to put words on paper, is to open one’s self to be judged, to self-judgement. I have jumped many hurdles, to use a cliché, in my life, made several big moves, changed my life more times than I moved. I raised a child mostly alone, a child of another race, using fear as my lover, using it as the tool to laugh in people’s faces and forge on, lived alone, lived with a husband who was an alcoholic and drug addict, had lovers who didn't love me back, among other things, but it didn’t take as much courage to do any of that as it does to record it.
I am mustering up all the courage I have within me to actually begin to write again and face the truth. The truth is I do care what I think about myself. To put the words on paper is to admit that I have weaknesses, that I have some bizarre thoughts from time to time, well more times than not. It is to admit that I am judgemental, intolerant, impatient, and not at all rational. If I keep them in my head, I won’t really know or be all of those things. And, the world will see me as I wish them too. I once wrote in my chapter of a book I was asked to participate in “Fear is the crutch that keeps us from moving forward.” The editor liked it so much that it was one of the things she pulled out of the essay and highlighted on the pages of my chapter. FDR said “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” I believe these two quotes, attempt to live my life that way. And, for the most part have been successful. I need courage now, to tell the story I need to tell, not the cutesy little anecdotes that I tend to write in my story telling, my essays and my poetry. But the bigger picture, painted around the small incidents in bold color, perhaps fucia, as purple is much too comfortable a color for me, I need to excuse myself from my comfort zone. I need to face the fact that I spent a good part of my life, trying not to be like my mother, hating her, scared to death that everyone around me would realize that I didn’t love her, afraid to admit to myself that I didn't love her. After all, she didn’t really do that much harm to me. She didn't beat me, or abandon me, she fed me, clothed me, bought me nice things, gave me money when I needed it even as an adult. But it was always with “conditions” and those “conditions” have colored my life, colored me sad, colored me defiant, colored me obstinate, colored me strong, colored me as I am now. It appears trite to write about one’s mother. After all, so many people do it, blaming things on their mothers. I remember when I was a teenager and had attempted suicide; the psychiatrist said it was my mother’s fault. My mother pulled me away from him quicker than the sharp words that came out of her mouth. “They always say that, damn you, Junie, you always make me look bad, what did you say about me.” I didn’t remember saying anything about her. In fact that day, he didn’t talk to me, just her.

However the story I need the courage to tell is not about how my mother and I didn’t get along. The story I need to tell is not how I struggled to love her. But how I lived my life loving others in spite of her, learning to love, discovering that love really existed. To whine about the bad times is an easy story to put on paper; to actually admit that there were good times, both with her and without her, that takes courage….and as I begin my story I call upon all that is in me to begin. Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a child who became a woman who had a child who also became a woman who also had a child…..and so on and so on and so on, now I must fill in the lines in between.


I am currently Anxious
I am listening to roar of the air conditioner