The Fear

I was walking on the edge of a beautiful mountainside, the rocks were shades of limestone and little sprouts of greenery were peeking through them.

I looked down at my own feet and saw the massive canyon below me. Shades of orange and red rocks spoke in a mesmerizing yet chilling way to my memories. It was all so picturesque. A screenshot of beauty that seemed so flawless to the naked eye. This is a place so many would call natures most tranquil atmosphere. And although I admit its attraction, below my shallow breaths I felt utterly terrified.

You see I began to recognize this place. It's somewhere I had been a few years back. A peacefully joyous place. I recall the happiness I once experienced here. The endless laughter, and even more so, the seemingly sincere love. I recall standing on a solid canyon rock that seems as if nothing in the earth could weather its support.

Now you may be thinking I have a serious phobia of heights, and perhaps, but in my opinion, it is, in fact, the act of falling that terrifies me even more than the height itself.

If you have ever felt the impact of your body as you hit against unforgiving rock then you'll know what I mean. Or if you've ever tasted the dirt from your lips as they've scraped across the ground. Evermore, if you've ever heard the hollow emptiness at the bottom-most walls of the canyon, you will know what I mean when I say it is not a fall that you easily recover from. So the fear of potentially going back to that state of being is almost too much.

And when the memory of this all enters my body, it becomes difficult for me to breathe and appreciate the scenery that surrounds me. Even its soft ambiance begins to grow troublesome inside me. I want to run. Go as far away from this place of vulnerability as possible. And as I stare out into the abyss of it all I see my own fear building a wall that blocks me against everything I can experience.

But what if we knew that not all rock weathered? That there was somehow a possibility for newness, for joy, and for love. Can you imagine if the fear of our past events,  or whatever fall we experienced became irrelevant?

As most things go, we are always given at least two pathways to choose from. An option to leave or to stay, to do something or to do simply nothing at all. An option to stay back in the fear that drains us of happiness or go forward in our own beautiful vulnerability.