Prompt: Share something that scared you when you were young…are you still afraid?
I know the prompt uses the word scared and my title says fear yet for me the two words tend to be somewhat interchangeable. I think the main difference between afraid and fear is how you react to the feeling. Being afraid tends to simply make me more cautious with whatever the source of that emotion may be. Yet fear tends to push me towards being unable to move past the feeling it pulls from me. I have to force myself to push past fear when being afraid is something that tends to be more temporary and easy to move through.
So now to my fear. As a child, my Grandmother and I were often on the road late at night whether driving back from a relatives home or from a late night church service. I grew up pentecostal which meant every night was a church night. I look back now and wonder how I ever made it to school awake much less on time!
Our church was about a 20 minute drive from where we lived and we had to go through a residential area that had big houses and a lot of trees. Yet there was this one house – this one tree that taught me early on the power fear could have – if you let it.
I think the thing that made me fear this tree the most was how out-of-place it seemed to be. It was literally in the front yard of a very suburban home. There were no woods, fields or anything else to explain how this large weeping willow came to be there. Yet it had this presence to it that when everything else was long gone it would still be standing there with its long hanging branches swaying in the wind as if moving to its own slow song.
Every time my Grandmother would turn onto this street I would anticipate seeing those branches and leaves. Hanging there as if waiting to reach out and grab me from the safety of her car. I would slide my way to whatever side of the car took me further from its reach and click my seatbelt tight hoping that somehow this would deter it from making the effort to grab me.
I would ask my Grandmother to speed up so we could round the corner and I wouldn’t have to see it anymore. She never understood why that tree impacted me so. I’m not even sure I really did. It had this mix of mystery and longing to it. Like there was something it wanted to tell me – show me even. Yet all I felt was a dread. I feared that mystery and the unknown of every single branch hanging low.
To me this weeping willow was unnatural. Trees were supposed to reach high to the sky. To grow towards the heavens as if seeking to be reunited with He who created them. Yet this tree did the opposite. It’s branches reached low towards the earth in a way that felt somehow wrong to me.
As I think back I realize the weeping tree did and does remind me of death and sadness. The name alone made me wonder why a tree would be so sad as to weep. Even now when I happen upon the random weeping willow I feel that fear creep back into my mind – my heart. The difference is I no longer submit to the fear. I realize fear only has the power you give it.
I remind myself ‘it is just a tree’ releasing myself from the grip it once had on my emotions.
This post was written as Day one of NaBloPoMo, a challenge to write every day in November. My goal is to accept the challenge and in the very least attempt the challenge 🙂 . I found today’s prompt at Mama Kat’s Losin It.
“Believe in yourself, your passions, and your dreams. Your voice is unique - build on that. Embrace what is different about you and make it your greatest asset!”
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