Fears and Following your Heart

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Cor 13

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Why do we so consistently underestimate the value of words? Words can comfort and destroy, begin and end... they can change everything.
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It is late, and I am spending my last night up, trying to pack and feeling completely overwhelmed, alone, upset and terrified of what may lie before me. However, I hesitate even as I type...

What am I afraid of exactly?

• I am afraid I made a mistake in quitting my job before finding another (when it took 50 applications and 6 months for me to find it in the first place).
• I am afraid I will be alone... and I don't want travel alone.
• I am afraid I will spend all my money and never make it back, that I will pack too little or too much, and that I will get stranded and waste my time.
• I am afraid I will be scorned for traveling and be thought of as frittering away my time.
• I am afraid that I won't be working or close to getting a "real job," and I will have to depend on others, the Universe and God far, losing my independence and pride.
  
• I am afraid I will forget who I am without my family, home, cell phone and possessions.
• I am afraid I won't be able to formulate a purpose to my adventure.
• I am afraid I am running away from not settling down and making a life for myself in Colorado, and that I will miss out on something by leaving.
• I am afraid that I will not fit in amongst the highly religious environment.
  

Alright, so it's out there, and I bet I am not alone in feeling this way. It's amazing how these are the fears that keep Americans from traveling. Wow- this list is incredibly intense and scary- and I'm not even including the fears of terrorism, rape, muggings and general paranoia of a single woman hiking, camping, climbing and traveling alone to the Middle East! Ha!

But you know what? I am about to do what I have been dreaming of and pining about for the past two years... I finally am heeding that voice that has been whispering in my ear, "Patience, you will go at the right moment. In the meantime, keep trying, keep listening and prepare..."

I'm sick to my stomach with fear because I am doing the thing I am most afraid to do, which is also the thing I know in my heart I must do. The truth is, I am following my heart, and this is what following your heart, instead of your fears, feels like when you are out of practice.

And that brings me such immense gladness, freedom and joy that the peace finally begins to flow from my chest to my throat, releasing the tightness, from my throat to my mouth, freeing my smile, from my smile to my temples, relaxing my worry lines. Today, I sing.