Bravery
I know I’m not alone in being afraid of the dentist. Though I never used to be. But fairly recently I went to the dentist because a crown had fallen off. While examining my mouth, he said I could pay $500 to have the tooth out - which would leave my teeth ‘gappy’ - or pay $2k for a new crown. I paid the $2k. So I don’t like the dentist because I don’t like individuals demanding money when I’m stuck in a seat with my mouth wedged open. I’m worried about going back. I’m not sure me, my wallet, or my non-gappy teeth can take it.
I expect most people would agree that’s a reasonable fear, but there are other fears of mine that probably seem not so reasonable.
Like, I’ve always been weird about driving. I can do it. I have a clean license in two continents, but the idea of driving still makes me unreasonably anxious.
Living in LA, driving is a must. You can get public transport, but a journey that might take half an hour would take a couple of days. And yes, of course, I can Uber, or whatever. Mostly Mark drives, or Lachlan. Ferg will if I ask him, and of course at a push, I can drive myself. I just don’t really like to.
It’s always been this way. I remember back in London I was host at a fairly snarly stand-up gig. As the night drew on, I started to get more anxious, and as I paced in the foyer, the woman on the front desk asked if the gig was too full-on. I said the gig was totally fine and then explained about how I was worried about driving home.
She looked at me like I was speaking gibberish, so then I explained that I’d mostly lived in Glasgow, where there’s a great public transport system, and London that has the tube, so I hadn’t learned to drive till I was in my 30s. And because I’d learned late, I’d never really settled into it. She laughed. Really laughed. And then she called me a word beginning with R, that we no longer say in polite society.
I was, unsurprisingly, not very impressed. So then, over the raucous noise from the comedy room next door, I grabbed my bag and said that as driving was clearly so easy I was just going to nip out for a quick drive and she could carry on my job of hosting the comedy night.
Then she looked like she might have a seizure, and apologized pretty promptly, and said that really wasn’t what she’d meant. And then the evening carried on as usual, and though I was still pretty anxious about the drive home, it all went fine.
We each have our own fears, linked to our own personal experiences. As terribly brainy people will tell you, it’s only possible to be afraid of something that has in some way already happened -like a toddler will stick their hand in a fire, as they have no idea that it will burn them. Our fears warn us of consequences, and we can only comprehend those consequences if we have some previous experience of what they are.
Alright, enough of the brainy talk, point is I’ve been thinking about fear this week. Mostly though, because I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery, and what it means. But, you see, in order to understand bravery, you have to think about fear, because bravery only works within the context of facing a fear and conquering it.
And most people have reasonable and unreasonable fears. Am I right to be nervous of the dentist? “Fuck yeah!” comes the resounding call from me and my wallet. But driving? Is it reasonable to be afraid of driving? Given my personal experience, uhm probably not.
But this week I was properly scared. Genuinely. Not for me though. And not about driving. But for someone else, who was nowhere in the vicinity of a dentist.
I have a new friend, more of a work colleague really, but I like her, and in other circumstances, I reckon we’d be pals. We met because she had stuff she needed to say, and because she’s a hard worker, she wished to make sure she was saying it clearly. That’s kind of my grown-up job, I suppose, to help people say things more clearly (which must be a matter of great amusement to anyone who reads these random Notes on a regular basis).
Anyway, my friend has been to jail - spoiler alert, she was innocent. And despite being proved to be innocent, some people prefer to believe she is guilty. Even some of those who know she’s innocent still think she should stay quiet. I don’t really know why that is. I guess it is some kind of deep-seated belief that as she managed to survive something unthinkable, none of us should ever have to think about it.
Anyway, this week the time came for my friend to speak, and despite literally the weight of the world bearing down on her, she did. And 5000 miles away, I paced like an expectant mother. And when I learned that she was OK and it all went well and people had listened, I was unreasonably emosh.
You see, my friend does not have the luxury of ‘unreasonable fear.’ Because of the experiences of her relatively short life, any new horrific and unreasonable imagining any mind could drum up, could literally for her be a reasonable possibility. History has shown it to be so. So if it’s only possible for us to be afraid of something that has already happened, then my new wee friend has to have quite an extensive palate.
And yet she spoke. Because deep down it was right. And she made people laugh because she wished to show that surviving is not just about hiding in darkness, but also popping your head out to marvel at the color of the sky. And I was fucking humbled.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to fathom how she navigates the ‘what could, and continues to happen’ in her life. But I don’t know that I need to, in order to know that I see her as a friend. Our individual experiences in life will always make us different. It’s how we choose to heal from those that lets us be the same.
We all have stuff in our lives that we must navigate. It might be paying a bill. A difficult phone call. Having to move home. The conversation that needs to be had, but there seems no easy way to make it. For the majority people, there are small things that might get you called the R word by some fucking doughbrain sitting out front at a comedy club. And for others, they are the stuff of nightmares.
But we are all more than one single incident that happens to us. No matter how big that incident happens to be. Being courageous isn’t about the size of the noun we face, but about the level of fear we navigate having to do so.
Most of us don’t really get to choose what happens to us, as I don’t know if you know this, but Life seems to operate entirely on Life’s terms. But while we exist, we each have the option to make life better for everyone. By giant leaps or steadily by one tiny step at a time. Even when it’s really hard. I think that’s what bravery is.
That and my new wee pal just saying what she knows.
Xo
PS: If you can find your way to be brave to click the wee heart on this post to say you like it, it may persuade others to do the same. Manipulative, moi?.
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