YOU are not alone and neither am I

 

I have wasted too much of my life being afraid. Afraid of sharing my unique self with the world. Keeping my little jokes to myself for fear of someone not getting them, not getting me. Afraid to speak up, afraid to say anything at all. I blended into the background as best as I could. Trying not to be “discovered”.

I kept in my own little world for fear of living in the real world. And that is what that fear was doing to me; it was preventing me from living at all. I responded to events, I never initiated them. I never tried my best at anything for fear that my best wasn’t good enough.

Fear is isolating. It self perpetuates; feeding on doubts and insecurities. My fear kept me away from people, from getting to know anyone. Even my own family. I would don a placid and vaguely pleasant mask that I wore for the social events I couldn’t get out of.  I was labeled shy and thus ignored, and I liked that for a time… but as my life passed and I found it more and more difficult to convince myself that I enjoyed being alone in a crowd; never sharing my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, my opinions. It never occurred to me that others could feel the same. I think loneliness has a way of making one think they are the only person in the world who has ever felt the way they do.

Perhaps it was my loneliness which caused to to reach out.  I have discovered that loneliness is quite common, many of us are lonely. Some hide it well but it shows in the eyes. It shows in the constant seeking some people do; the restlessness, the looking for that something they can’t seem to find.

I have found that something and that is this glorious truth;  by reaching out to others, others reach out to you too. I have been encountering such beautiful souls…wonderful people who shine like the sun. Some of them don’t think they shine at all but they do and that light warms us all in this cold world.

We need more of this. This world is dark and cold and we need those special people out there, the quiet ones out there in the shadows, hiding…waiting perhaps for someone to notice them and beckon them out into the light. I understand you. I am one of you and you are not alone.

 

Part of me wants to shout out from the rooftops: I am here!  I exist!  I yearn to make a difference in the world!

(Another part of me wants to run and hide and blend into the background.)

This time I won’t allow it.  I will wear my heart on my sleeve and I won’t give a damn what some may think or say. I won’t let fear run my life, rule me. I won’t be afraid of opening my heart, my mind, of freeing my soul to something wonderful that I cannot yet see. I will free myself from fear…those of you who fear like me, you can too…

You can. Take my hand… We can come out into the light together and together we shine like a million suns…

 

 

❤ Thanks for being there and listening. Thanks for reading my blog and for commenting. Thanks for accepting me as I am. My confidence grows daily.  It is through my writing and because of it that I can come out into the light and be the person I’m meant to be.  

 

~Nancy

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The Beatles – Eleanor Rigby