Maps.

Every morning starts out with birdsong. Lately I wake before my alarm, meaning that I really need to go to sleep early, because it doesn’t seem to matter whether I go to bed at 10:30 or 11:30, I wake up by 5:30. The world is still dark, but the birds are just beginning to sing.

Birds are fascinating, with their fast little heartbeats, the way they rush the power lines, rocking them back and forth in an effort to make the loudest, best songs. They compete and threaten each other. They peck away at insects and steal things to build their nests. We have a lot of mynahs, they are our “crows,” and they are versatile. They growl and mutter, click and belt out notes. They fill the air with the flutter of wings and the trills of songs, and if things get hard, they can just turn a wing, lift up with a rush, and fly.

If I was a bird I could sit at the tops of all my favorite trees. If I was a bird, my heart would beat faster. I would be even more nervous than I am now.

I am coming to terms with the fact that I am a creature plagued by fear. I have admitted for a long time that  I struggle with anxiety, but that is somehow removed from me. Anxiety, yes, it is a disorder, it plagues me. But I realized recently that no matter how many good things come to me, I am still afraid. And I will be that way until healing comes or until I am transformed in a flash, a great mystery. The circumstances don’t matter. I think if I succeeded with writing and made a lot of money, I would be worried that it would go away, or that it wouldn’t happen again. 

I can almost draw maps of fear. Cities have places that I have been afraid. That’s where I worried that my father wouldn’t meet Isaac if he wasn’t born that week. That’s the place I cried because we lived in a new place that was so foreign. There I worried that our new friends didn’t really like us. There I was afraid of the bright lights, the rows of products, the crowds, the fish in buckets, the days stretching on forever. I drive through streets and the spots echo back at me. 

The weirdest part is that I struggle with fear when things are the greatest. 

Oh, enough. If I was a bird I could fly up to the highest branches of the trees I love best. 

Maybe you are also often afraid. When fear is like a sickness, like something that flows through your veins, just facing the day is often the bravest thing you can do. Facing the blank page, the blank canvas, the question of what to cook for dinner can require bravery big enough to scale a mountain. I’m sure that even if you are afraid, you are very brave.

But what I know is that I am not made of my fear. And I don’t have to let the maps of my heart be written over in fear’s red pencil. That’s where we learned that Isaac was going to be okay. That’s where I found the best spring rolls. That’s where I spent hours looking at paint colors. I met my husband in that city. My son put his hand in mine on that street. Every single day, just as every morning I woke to hear the bird’s sing. There were hundreds of beautiful evenings, all the birds shrieking from their trees. We are more than emotion. We are more than emotion. We get to tell our story, to decide what is recorded, what will take over, what will be remembered. 

And that is what I am recommitting to, looking forward into the New Year. This place has been a place to remember all the beautiful things, to draw the map in bright blue pencil, making notes, drawing pictures along the way. A map of life, of the childhoods of my family. I’ve may have lost my way slightly, but I’m finding it again.