Be Brave (or be scared but do it anyway)


 I have been a single parent for 5966 days and roughly 2 hours while I’m writing this. I’ve probably been scared for about 5800 of those days. Some of that fear never goes, we all worry about something happening to our kids and money is a constant worry and fear always lurking in the background.

 

I’ve realised lately that I’m scared about far more than that. I’ll give you an example. I have a radiator which was coming away from the wall. I isolated it immediately. I asked my ex husband for advice and when he made it clear that he wasn’t going to trot over and fix it. I knew I would have to take it off the wall myself. I spent three days being scared and then managed to do it. The next stage was to fill holes in the wall so I could replace the brackets. I finished this today having spent a week too scared because I’d never used Polyfilla before. 

 

This has made me think about how much of my life I spend in fear. Making a phone call can induce a feeling of panic. I have a child with learning difficulties so I’ve spent a lot of time fighting for help for her and worrying about whether I was doing the right thing. At the moment I’m scared about her starting college in September. Her. GCSE grades weren’t high enough for A levels so she’s doing a foundation course. I’ve tried all her life to clear her path for her and the fear now as always is that I won’t be able to do that for her. 

 

I can’t do anything about that fear, it’s something I’ll have to just deal with but what I have noticed about other things is that I’m often scared and fearful about doing something but then I just go ahead and do it anyway. 

 

An example of this is the first holiday I took my children on as a single parent. It was already booked so I wasn’t going to waste it. The sticking point was that it involved me having to drive through France. I had never driven abroad before. I remember driving out  of the Eurotunnel muttering under my breath “Drive on the right, drive on the right”. Two hours later, having survived getting lost on the Paris ring road, I was driving through the Loire Valley with fields of sunflowers on both sides. I clearly remember that feeling of exhilaration and thinking to myself “I’ve got this”

 

I think what I have realised now is that it’s ok to be scared and that maybe I just have to give myself time to fear. That’s alright as long as I get to the point of thinking “I’m scared, the fear is still there but I’m going to do this anyway” This way the fear doesn’t win but I just accept it as part of me. I won’t make myself feel bad about being scared and fearful but I’ll feel good about the fact that it doesn’t conquer me. I’ve even bought myself a little badge just to remind myself to be brave that I’ve pinned inside my handbag. You see, I know that I am brave but, like many of us, I sometimes just need a little reminder 



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