thoughts on being brave.

Let me start by saying: I am weirdly private.
I mean… I have a LIFE blog where I write about how I’m feeling and what I like and how I curl my hair and stuff. But I also like to treasure things in my heart, and I like to make sure there is a difference between people who read my blog and people who are actually invested in my life. So I’m not going to force myself to share more than I want to share.

Okay that said.

I told the boy I like that I like him.

I kept waiting for the right moment and trying to set up the right moment and it literally kept not happening. I was in Nashville, talking to Ernie and Kristen and I remembered talking to them about him the last time I was there. and I thought, “this is stupid; at this rate, I’ll still be talking about telling him I like him the NEXT time I visit.”

So I sat on my home away from home bed with my thumb over the little call icon for like five minutes. I prayed, and before I knew what I was doing I ACTUALLY PRESSED CALL. I never wanted to say it over the phone but my attempts at in real life never panned out. and then before he had a chance to say anything, I just told him.

and….

the world didn’t end.

I had a week to think about what I’d done, and I kept thinking… the world didn’t end. People didn’t even know I’d done anything that I thought was awardably brave unless I told them, and even then nobody gave me a trophy. Life, for the most part, carried on as if I hadn’t dropped my thumb on the call icon instead of dropping the phone all together.

You know what makes mountains out of molehills? TIME. The longer I waited, the more extreme the imagined responses would be, and the more scared I got about it.

I think this applies to a lot of things asking us to be brave. We get an idea, and the new idea walks in with a vase of fresh flowers (our bravery!)  and they smell nice and we have this adrenaline rush… and over time the flowers slowly start to wilt and then get a little moldy and an eyesore and it’s hard to feel energetic. And then maybe someone new walks in with the same idea and they bring more new fresh flowers, but the bravery just kind of keeps expiring if we don’t do something.

Now that I see how easy it can be, I’m kind of making a bucket list of things requiring my bravery. Things like:

• being honest with the people I love
• finishing things I start even when they get rough
• apologizing for mistakes I’ve made
• living with less
• taking my own advice

I need to strike while the iron is hot, while the flowers are still fresh and while the idea of these brave things are parading in with more flowers to add to the table.

So here’s the thing:
Every night we go to sleep with dreams of finally being brave, we shovel a little more dirt on our molehill. We let the adrenaline flowers wilt a little bit and it gets that much harder to put on our bravery shoes and hit the ground running.

Your turn.

When is the last time you were brave?
What is on your bravery bucket list, and what is standing in the way of you GOING FOR IT?