All year long there have been memes generating about the year of holy terror. The year when we all became fat alcoholics. The year we don’t have to take off our pajamas for work; when we see no friends, go to no restaurants; the year we had no idea what to hang our hats on because not a living soul had experienced anything quite like this. The year we feared it all because it was all unknown. At the end of the day, is there anything scarier than not knowing what to brace for?

I write about fear a lot. Fear is human nature, and we often let it drive how we carry out our lives. We fear loss and pain. There is fear of being judged, fear of failure, regret, shame. But, this is the year we sat on the hard, cold concrete floor with our fear of the unknown.

We are over the halfway mark in the year 2020. We’ve been sitting with fear for quite a while and our asses are getting numb and bruised. We are ready to get up, stretch our legs and feel normal again. We are over it. But, as we get further into this sit in with fear, the more I realize it may not be the year that sucked. This is the year that was slow and weird, but has it sucked, like really sucked like some of your other years; the years when you not only sat with your fear of regret, fear of pain, fear of loss but you faced the actual thing you fear?

What is your greatest fear? Common question. My answer is usually the same. It’s weird but true: Regret. I fear that I’ll miss my opportunities. I am afraid of not making the most of my life. I fear laziness. I fear mediocrity. I fear I’ll miss my chance to make my life everything it has the potential to be.

In 2019 I faced my fear of regret. I expanded my business and opened my own gallery. That would be a peak, right? Not so fast… Because when I set out to create a bright space to display my art, my products and run my business, I got stuck in a retail rabbit hole and began free falling. So many options, like when Alice falls down the hole with everything swirling around her. My life’s top priorities got left behind as distractions. There were not enough hours in the day. I worked as much as possible just reaching out grabbing whatever I could tackle in no organized method. I spent hours traveling and working on and towards useless things. In doing that, I lost time that I will never get back. I looked into my fear-of-regret’s face, and what I recognized is that this ‘fear of lost opportunity’ is scrappy and run down. Being afraid of laziness resulted in me overcompensating to the brink of burn out.

Fear is a tricky little jack ass. Which fears are valid fears? Facing my fear taught me about valid fear versus irrational fear. I didn’t realize that this fear of regret has two heads, two faces. That’s when the heart comes in with that list of priorities it keeps. The only opportunities I should be afraid of missing out on are the ones that involve my heart.

In August of 2018, I was about to deliver my third child... without an epidural. I was trusting an inexplicable tug I felt in my heart even though many people would say it was completely unnecessary. I had no other reason to choose this more painful way except that there was this need in my heart. I know now that this inclination was a kind of challenge. God wanted me to face the kind of raw pain I feared, the kind that I had never conceived of, much less experienced. Me and my creative mind went into some dark places during this face to face encounter with pain. I’ll never forget experiencing those last brutal contractions as if my body was digesting a knife. That disturbing analogy repeatedly emerged behind my closed eyes, until the involuntary screaming started; screaming in a way my lungs had never vibrated before, at the very moment she emerged into this world. I completed the assignment. It was a wildly raw confrontation with pain, but I know why I had to do it. I’ll never be the same person I was before. I’ll never again waste time fearing pain and discomfort when something so amazing is on the other side of it.

In 2019 I looked into the face of loss. The face was my sister’s. I sat helplessly while she delivered a stillborn baby. We sobbed in heartbreak not only for the person we would never get to know, but because I knew my sister’s heart was crumbling. The worst part of watching someone you love feel such tremendous loss is not being able to do a damn thing to get them through it. The core of me ached to trade places with her. I wanted to do all of the hard things she didn’t seem strong enough to take. But, I couldn’t do that. She did it herself. And, she came out the other side. She faced the loss, and now, she handles her life with the kind of faith and perseverance that only someone who has faced unmasked loss can possess. She is strong and sturdier at heart and she knows she is capable of enduring difficult things. Every blessing is that much brighter now.

Some years we look, not at the fear, but at the face of the actual thing we fear. We take off the mask and see what it is really like. We sit, not with the fear of pain, but the actual pain itself. We get face to face with it. We feel it. We experience it. And, we get the sores and the bruises. And then, when it’s over, we get up off the floor, and we walk away from it with a different stride. We are not paralyzed by the fear and mystery of the masked version because we’ve seen what’s behind it.

2020 is the year of fear. It is also the year of masks. The year of the unknown. We are not even sure what to be afraid of exactly. Covid might just be here to show us what happens when we sit with fear for too long. Covid is showing us what it’s like to live in fear, paralyzed and masked. Fear is restricting and limiting. Fear is boring and lonely. Fear sucks out the good and makes room for all of the bad that hasn’t even happened yet. Fear sucks.

On creative fear, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote “Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a navy SEAL: He hasn’t slept in days, he’s all hopped up on Red Bull, and he’s liable to shoot his own shadow in an absurd effort to keep everyone “safe”.

So is this really the year that sucked? Or is it the fear that sucked? Facing actual pain and loss is what sucks, but the fear of it?…that’s just a pain in the ass and a waste of valuable time. Fear sits you on the floor when you could be living your life. Don’t take my word for it, just turn on the news. You’ll be sitting on your hard kitchen floor in no time, terrified to leave the house.

For many families, 2020 may be like my 2019; regret, loss and sadness in the flesh. But many of us are just getting cabin fever from living too long in a year of fear. We have been sitting with fear on the god damn concrete floor and our asses are getting sore and numb. We are over it. But this long, tedious sit with fear has shown us just how it effects us.

We don’t have all of the options this year, but what we do have are choices. We can sit on the floor scared and pissed, or we can stand up and stretch our legs, and live within the life we have right now. And if pain and loss come to the door, we open it and face it and experience it and let it be what it is and change us into who we are meant to become. Not a minute sooner will we waste time, sitting on the floor waiting for a knock at the door. There is a life we are to be living even within the realm of social distancing. It may not be the life you were used to before this year, but it may be closer to the life you were meant for.

2020 was the year I stopped trying to wear all the hats and just became me; an artist who sees color and light in everything. I am a 35 year old woman who has three amazing, healthy and very energetic young children, a loving husband who helps us all appreciate the simple ways of life; a house full of people who make me laugh and smile and also cry and yell, but I thank God for them on repeat. I am a writer who loves to use words to build and brighten others up. I am a daughter and daughter in law, a sister and a sister in law, and I am a loyal friend to a handful of people. I even have some hobbies for the first time in…ever. I work in my yard and I ride my bike, and I even paint murals on the walls of my house just because I can. I listen to music all the time and I read inspiring books (whoa that’s a new one!), and I cook for my family more often remembering that I used to really enjoy cooking before I was “too busy”. It is once again a creative and relaxing way to end the day. And, it feels good to fill up the people I love. (Ok, I’m not this positive about making dinner every night.)

We have so much to be cautious and wise about in this life, but fear is something else. God makes it pretty clear that fear is not part of His plan for us. This world may be a scary place, but faith keeps the fear out, and my heart is my favorite way to keep all that organized.

In 2020 God is still good. This year my sister had another baby, and so did our very good friends; a baby we have been praying for over the past decade! In 2020 I found focus and my own permission to be “lazy”. I found such a strong sense of purpose that I can use it to filter out useless busy work. In 2020 I realized, there actually are plenty of hours in the day to do just the right amount of things.

This year I sat on the cold hard floor with that pathetic fear for a little while until my ass was numb and sore. So I got up because I ain’t got time for that. I’ve got dinner in the oven.