One-A-Day Courage II

One-A-Day Courage
Part two of three parts

It was the day after Christmas. I sat in the living room, watching my daughter Lynne playing with the doll Santa had brought her. She had set up an elaborate stage for her new mothering: the living room floor was a creative replica of our neighborhood.

“Let’s go to the store, Mary Anne,” Lynn said sweetly. “No, we’d better not go to that one. I’m afraid the lines will be too long and we won’t be home in time for lunch. Now, don’t cry, maybe this other store will have your ice cream this time.” She walked her doll around the tiny neighborhood. “Would you like to swing?” She smiled so tenderly as she picked up her new baby doll. “Oh, let’s not get on that one, dear. I’m afraid it goes a bit high. Let’s sit on this one over here.”

And so it went, time after time. Every activity was scaled down by fear.

“Is this how I want my child to live?” I thought. “Is this all I am giving her, a tiny life in a tiny neighborhood, bound by fear?”

For six days I looked at the boundaries of my life. Every day, the limits I had set around myself became more oppressive.

I watched the sunrise on New Year’s Day. The sky was perfectly clear, a rosy glow of peach giving way to intense blue. My husband and daughter lay sleeping in the early morning stillness, but I was wide awake, studying the colors of the sky, searching for rays of courage to melt the cold fear that held me prisoner.

I made one New Year’s resolution. Only one, but it would change my life forever. I resolved that every day of this one year, I would face and conquer one fear.

So it was that at 6:53 a.m., on January 1, I slipped into an overcoat, got into my car, and drove across town to buy fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast. On January 2, I walked to the playground and sat in the high swing, pumping myself higher and higher, half gasping, half choking as the earth swept up before me with every downstroke.