On Fear

"wow you are going to __(insert country here)! All by yourself? Aren't you scared? I could never do that".
These are common reactions when I tell someone about a trip. "No" I respond, almost puzzled as to what I should be afraid of. If I want to there, I will go there. I do not feel fear before I  get there.

But now I am here. The beginning of a trip is always terrifying. The lonely night when you arrive in a new country, maybe don't speak the language, maybe don't have the currency figured out. The night when you cannot just pick up the phone and connect to loved ones. The nighttime when you hear unusual sounds of animals outside, murmuring of strangers all around you. In the night when you are exhausted but cannot sleep. When you toss and turn and think about how much easier it would be just to be home in your own bed right now. Those moments there is a deep form of fear. It is when you have to face uncertainty. It is when you have to trust forces beyond your control, forces "out there" that decide if and when you will "be ok". It is when you have to trust yourself and your own decisions that brought you here to this uncomfortable bed in a foreign land. Am I scared in these moments? Without a doubt. Do I begin to question myself and my galavanting self wandering around the planet alone? Of course. Do I wish I could just scurry back home with my tail between my legs to a place that is familiar and comfortable? Sometimes. When it is 1am and my dreams are strange from malaria medication, when it is 4am and my stomach is gurgling from some new food I ate, those are the moments that I, too, wonder, "can I do this?". The beginning is always hard and scary. These are often the moments that melt away once I am off on an adventure, taking in the thrills of the ride, these are the moments I forget as I'm buying tickets and packing bags for a new journey. But it is an essential part. In fact, if I didn't have these moments of being utterly terrified and filled with doubt and a not so secret longing to head right back to the airport and go home, then I probably would be concerned. I suppose some say that I am courageous, for doing these trips. But all I am doing is facing fear. Maybe your fear is right there with you in your familiar bed and comfortable room. Maybe your fear is always riding on your coattails wherever you go and its only when I'm out of place and lost that I turn around and notice it. Would it be easier not to? Yes, almost always. But then how would you grow. how would you know what you can and "couldn't do". Have you even tried? Have you boarded the plane and sat there in the dark in an unknown place and wondered why you came here? Have you sat there and felt the alloted time of the trip stretch out into an immensity ahead of you?
would you do it again?

yes.