You'd never know it from being around me, but I can be shy. When it comes to expressing feelings or telling someone I like them, I'm usually pretty silent about it. Better to suffer in silence than risk rejection. I never really asked anyone out before; usually let them do the asking. Needless to say that hasn't worked out too well for me and I decided if I ever wanted things to be different, then I needed to make a change.
Embarassing to admit, but my "Do one thing a month that scares me" resolution was inspired by a guy I liked. He was just so bold and fearless that I thought there was no way he would ever be interested in a shy, scared little girl like me It started that way, but fortunately evolved into a project just to improve me... for me, which turned out to be good in the end.
He was tall, dark and handsome. He was outgoing, friendly and treated everyone like they were his best friend. It was odd - I sat right next to him most days and we had a brother/sister pick-on-one-another type relationship, yet I felt invisible when I was around him. He never ignored me, but would flirt with every other girl except for me. I even dressed up more around him and started actually acting like a girl (which is a BIG deal for a tomboy, let me tell ya). Nada. Must have been the most oblivious guy on the planet, and I truely mean that in the nicest way possible. :)
He ended up leaving shortly after we met, but we kept in contact and are still friends. I never did end up telling him how I felt about him at the time. I tried before he left and my courage left me. I saw him about a year and half after that. We ate lunch together and had a fantastic conversation for 40 minutes straight, talking about anything and everything, just like he had never left. I tried to tell him when he left then, but everything was too perfect and I was scared he'd never talk to me like that again. The thought of losing his friendship scared me and it was worth staying silent about my feelings, no matter how much it hurt. To have him in my life in any way possible was better than not at all.
I'd write "like" letters from time to time, intending to send them (or not), but they never sounded good enough. I must have written 5 or so and deleted them all. I began to realize that there would never be a "perfect" one, as there was no such thing. One evening, the evening as the snow was falling last year to mark the start of Snowapalooza 2011, I stopped trying to write the "perfect" letter and lo and behold, it had become the best one I had written to date. As cliche as it sounds, I just wrote from my heart. I wrote a letter like I would have liked to receive.
I sat up until 2am that night, going back and forth about if I could really send it. I was chatting with a friend at the time and he said there was nothing to think about - to just close my eyes, hit send and all of this torment would be over. And this brings me back to my original point - all you need is 20 seconds of courage. Actually, all you really need is one second. That's all it really takes. I positioned my mouse over the "send" button, closed my eyes, held my breath and hit send. I slept that night more peacefully than I had in a long time. It sounds odd, but as I slept, I could feel a change in me. It was as if the peaceful feeling coursed through my veins and bonded with my DNA. I seriously felt wings on my back that night, as crazy as that sounds. (ha, ironic to think that later that month, I would take my first trip in a helicopter and later take flying lessons that year. Wings indeed, and actually not all that crazy afterall.) I think I was so at peace because (at that moment anyways) that no matter what happened, I knew that I was able to do something that I never thought I could do. I did something that up until that point had been one of the scariest things I could EVER imagine... and I did it. How cool was that?!?! I told that myself that no matter the outcome, that I has succeeded because I pushed past that fear. I couldn't control what another person did, but I could control my feelings and how I viewed things. I told myself (over and over and over and over...it wasn't easy) to drop all expectations, to not even expect a response. I sent the letter and it had done its job. I didn't need a response (although it would have been a nice bonus) to validate it. He did up responding and told me he wasn't ready for a relationship, but he said he did admire my initiative. No matter how much I tried to convince myself at the time, I still viewed it as a failure. It's amazing how much perspective you get in a year. I no longer view it as a failure; it was anything but! Everything seemed to snowball after that. It gave me momenturm for stepping out of my comfort zone further. Who knows if I'd be flying a plane now if that hadn't happened? 2011 became the year of taking the intiative.
I only mention this occasion because it marked the first time I had done something where a risk was involved. Remember that when I began my "do one thing a month that scares me", I had added the disclaimer that it couldn't be something that would hurt me. 2011 marked when I let go of that caviat. I figured if I could do this, then I could do anything. Now, roller coaster riding and flying planes carries almost no risk at all, but still it carries a higher risk than the In The Dark exhibit, for instance.
My friends couldn't believe what I had done. I didn't tell many, but those I did were absolutely floored. I'm not kidding when I say that their mouths dropped to the floor in shock. Was probably one of the first times, come to think of it, that people started saying "Omigosh, YOU did WHAT?!?!". I was on top of the world and those that knew treated me like a celebrity for a bit. Even the not so shy ones said they could not have done what I did. That's what fear conquering does to you - it makes you feel on top of the world and you get momentum to go onto the next thing to see what else you can conquer.
If I couldn't go after what I wanted, then I didn't deserve it in the first place. If I didn't have the courage to ask to find the answers to the questions I had, then the answer would always be an automatic NO. If I didn't take the initiative to step forward, then I'd forever be stuck where I was and being stuck in your comfort zone can be a very uncomfortable place to be. Matt Damon's character in the movie says, "All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage and I PROMISE you that something good will come of it", and it's quite true. It may not be what you hoped, it may not be what you imagined, but something good WILL come of it. I've got a 100% success rate from my fear conquering. Where else in life can you find those odds?
