A toast

"Somewhere along the way, I became a lot less interesting".

Those words resonated within her for the better part of Autumn, all the horrid parts of Winter and a decent portion of Spring. Once a traveler, a nomad of sorts, she prided herself on adventure and independence. Lively, colorful, bright, curious and free, Fear was merely an excuse others used to stay inside their imaginary boxes. It held no value in the way she lived. Well, like a young child demanding attention, Fear threw itself on the floor at her feet, arms wailing, legs kicking and the screaming ensued as if to say, "I'll give HER something to fear".

She had allowed herself to become vulnerable. She ignored all things logical and fell in love. She fell in love with a man, but she married herself to an ideal. It wasn't until that fateful day when Fear and Fate ganged up on her, like a pair of bulldog-esque lawyers, and served her divorce papers that she learned what it truly meant to live with Fear in her heart.

Nearly everything inside her died that day. Innocence: ruptured, Faith: broken, Optimism: shattered, Trust: punctured beyond repair. If it was possible for the injuries on a person's spirit to be itemized and documented, this would have been her autopsy report. Her soul died on impact that day and Fear marched right in to fill all the voids her precious ideal left behind. She packed up her shoes, pots and pans, coats, and Christmas cards. She headed up north, bundled in Fear and Regret, longing for the familiar. She was ready to settle down, and "down" and "settled" is accurately where she found herself ten months later.

Friends would offer her words of encouragement, but what would be encouraging to them only fed the Fear inside of her. "It'll get easier with time", "He would WANT you to be happy", "You'll feel like your old self soon, give it time", "You're back home now, it's going to be ok". To someone who didn't want it to get "easier" this was insulting. To someone who knew what he wanted when he was alive this was degrading. To someone who knew she would never have anything in common with her former self this was ignorant. However, to someone who never wanted to call this life "home" (again), this was terrifying. Further below she sank. The more people who came into- back into, her life the more she felt alone. Not the liberating sense of independence she previously experienced while on her own. This version of alone was a dark one. She wasn't really alone though, and I'm not implying that she had an angel at her side but quite the opposite. It was the devil. It was defeat. It was Fear.

She accepted life as if her script was written and all the beauty and adventure she previously reveled in had a light haze around it as that of a dream. Here awaited her reality. It was gray and cold and bleak and, oh god, it was mundane. It was as if someone gave Life a lobotomy and dumbed down all it's glorious insanity, leaving it predictable and emotionless.

But wait. What's this? Fear, her new best friend, was still here. However, he began working in her favor. Fear was at this moment, on her side. She began to fear accepting this as her sentence. Fear had awoken something inside of her late that spring. She remembered what it felt like to think independently, to write her OWN script. She didn't want her life to be justified by circumstance, even if she suffered miserably at the hands of fate last year. She wanted her life to be just that, her own. Beautiful, bright, colorful and lively. If she was going to claim her life back, she first had to accept ownership of it. In order to do that, she had to say farewell to a friend.

"So here's looking at you, kid. We had a great run. We've had our ups and downs but I think secretly we both knew this relationship wasn't going to make it in the long haul. Fear, thanks for the laughs but it's time we go our separate ways".