I remember how my legs would tingle as I looked down the glass railing of the second floor of the mall. I was barely tall enough to look over the banister, I’d just press my face against the glass and stare down at everyone carrying shopping bags, going from one store to the next. My pulse would quicken its pace with the thought that the glass could break and I could fall down forever.
I can still recall a nightmare I had when I was probably six or seven. The railing had broken. I was hanging from the second story of the mall, looking for someone to reach out their hand, doubting how long I could hold on. I don’t remember how the dream ended. I don’t know if someone strong enough pulled me up. I don’t know if I ended up falling and waking with a start before I could hit the floor. But I do know how afraid I was in that dream, afraid enough to remember it decades later.
Most people wouldn’t believe I used to be so afraid of heights. I’ve jumped off a 30 foot cliff into freezing waters. I’ve tandem swung off one of the largest waterfalls in the world. I’ve dangled my feet from the edge of a canyon. My friends, a safe distance from the ledge, telling me how it made their own legs tingle with fear to see me so close to the edge.
It’s not that the fear naturally faded as I grew up. It’s that I continuously confronted it.
Even as a little girl, I didn’t like feeling so afraid. I’d look down the railing of the mall for as long as I could, leaning into the glass, wanting, hoping, waiting for the tingling sensation to disappear. I’d tell myself I wasn’t really afraid, pretending that the distance down wasn’t making my heart race. I wanted to get over it, not feel so weakened by the fear. I’d stare down for as long as I could before being hurried along by my mom as we continued window shopping.
My little brother asks me favors when he’s afraid, to turn on the light of a dark room before he enters, to put a drying squid back in the ocean before it dies because he’s too afraid to touch it.
“But what if I’m afraid too?”
“You’re not afraid of anything.”
That’s not true. It’s just that I don’t avoid my fears. I confront them until I am no longer afraid. If you want to know the truth, sometimes my legs still tingle when I’m close to the edge of some height. I simply pretend I’m not afraid and eventually it stops being pretend.
It seems the more I fall into my fear, the more I realize I don’t hit the floor and shatter. I survive and discover the fall wasn’t enough to break me. And the more times I am willing to jump into my fear, the shorter the fall feels each time, until the distance between me and the thing I fear disappears and I stop being so afraid.