What Am I Afraid of?

What are you afraid of?

Big question, really.

There are so many THINGS we can be afraid of...

snakes. being alone. being unwanted. failure. the dark. driving on interstates.

Endings.

Telling our story means looking in the mirror and knowing full well who is staring back at you... and that can be scary sometimes.

Most of the time, actually.

So often we don't feel like facing those fears. I am guilty of wanting to be an ostrich with my head in the sand with more than just politics.

In order to share our stories, we have to know what is true and what isn't...

The difference between the fiction and the non-fiction...

And that means recognizing who we are, even with our flaws.

As that line goes from that famous movie (I can't remember which one... A Few Good Men, maybe?) "You can't handle the truth."

And because we're afraid we can't truly handle the truth of who we are, we fake it till we make it... one of my favorite mottos.

We paint smiles on our faces and keep on keepin' on... afraid to admit that we aren't "fine".

Afraid to discover who we are because we may not like what we see... or we may not be what others expect of us.

It's taken me a little less than 39 years to figure out it's ok to be afraid...

and I'm writing about that this month.

(Thanks to Five Minute Fridays for the daily prompts. Today's five minute write was on the word AFRAID).