I am alone, laying in bed, re-reading ‘American Gods’. I brace myself as the part that scares me most approaches, and the dead woman comes to talk to her husband. I get through the scene, frightened, and this time I pause my reading to examine the fear fresh in my still-racing heart.

Why am I so afraid of this scene? Laura is dead, but animated… but not particularly zombie-esque. More vampiric, actually, and vampires don’t scare me. The imagery clearly suggests she clawed her way out of the grave, and that certainly scares me… but this feels different. Bigger. What is this fear?

This is the fear of death, quietly stalking my every move. The deep-seeded fear of death, silent and backgrounded, creepily crawling across my subconscious.

A long pause in my exploration as I let this sink in, test the waters to see if this resonates true. It does, resounding in me and sending shivers up my spine. I give it much thought – why am I so very afraid of death? No answers, but the realization that this fear has become second nature to me, has been in my heart of hearts for many turns of the clock. No beginning; it stretches back into my past.

Eventually, the shivers pass and I groggily give up the process for sleep.

The next morning, I break open my current life-changing non-fiction book for to read a few pages while my beloved tinkers on her computer. The book tells a story to illustrate a point, and this is what I read:

“On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, LA’s posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice. For nearly five years, he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread: I have to do this for another 40-45 years?

Immediately, a strange shift began – Hans felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby.”

Tears pouring from my eyes, and I grok in fullness. Death stalks me and fuels my fears because I am failing to live my life as my heart needs to live! Life is precious and fragile, and I have wasted so much of it, spent so much of my life doing the wrong thing, on the wrong path, in the wrong marriage, ignoring my intuition and my dreams, doing instead what others wanted or expected even when it went loudly against my own needs or desires. I’ve been reasonable and rational instead of magickal and intuitive. I’ve disrespected and dishonored myself, lost my self-esteem and self-respect.

I spend excited moments flailing about and reading aloud to Pace, somehow managing to get the words out through the knots in my throat. She cries, too, and in our tears we vow to make our life what we want, to listen to our dreams and be irrational and loud and go against the grain, and most of all, be true to ourselves and each other.

I feel the fear unraveling in me even now, as I begin to open and listen to myself, my intuition, and my dreams.

I am in an *awesome* mood.

I’m going to dinner tonight with some of my best friends in all the world, and I scored a fabulous dress to wear!

I am on the couch with my gorgeous happy wife. We are both happier today than we’ve been in a year and a half, and what changed? Our perspective. We stopped stressing and started moving!

I am so happy and in such a good mood that I’m infecting others. A man at HEB and I talked about daffodils for five minutes. We both decided to get ourselves some – and we both bought our wives bouquets of roses. Totally awesome. The dressing room attendant at Ross said I turned her day around after I complimented her smile, and the clerk at Ross said it was nice to have an actual conversation with a customer that was pleasant after all the grumps she’s dealt with all day.

When I’m happy, I glow, and it makes others remember to shine. I love it.

Yesterday, Kyeli and I spontaneously decided to make a road trip to Galveston Island for her birthday. It was

Kyeli and I were in the right-hand story, but we wanted to share both versions of the story as an exercise in positivity, to illustrate how easy it is to shift your perspective and thereby shift your reality. (: It really could have been the worst day ever if our heads were tilted in a different direction. I’m sure glad it turned out to be the best day ever, though. (;

Historically, I smallenate myself, especially when confronted or questioned. I don’t offer ideas or thoughts or opinions, even when I have them in spades. I short-sell myself and short-circuit myself. I don’t stand up for myself, even if it makes me miserable. The opinions of others are more valuable than mine, especially if I feel like that other is better than me, either in general or in specific.

I’ve been trained to be small, because being small makes it easy to manipulate me, keep me down, and fill me with fear.

Today, I was writing an email to Marty, with whom I am collaborating on an art project. He asked if I had any ideas, and I responded with “I don’t have any ideas…” but then proceeded to write a paragraph of ideas. My initial response, deeply ingrained in me, was no – I’m not smart, I’m not creative, I have nothing to contribute – even when my contributions are requested and valued.

Another artist friend recently contradicted me when I said I wasn’t creative, because she saw in me creativity I express without awareness. My awareness was trained to hone in on the negative, on the lack, instead of on the fullness of myself.

But more and more these days, I find myself feeling and being creative, offering ideas, voicing those strong opinions I previously locked in, standing up for myself and not agreeing to things that go against my grain, being less and less afraid (and persisting more in the face of the fears that remain) – honoring my bigger self within.

In the lovely lyrical words of John Mayer:
Someday I’ll fly
Someday I’ll soar
Someday I’ll be so damn much more
Cause I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for…

I think my ’someday’ is now.

I just read the text on the back of a box of popcorn, and was reminded of Seth Godin’s recent post.

From the popcorn box:

Orville was passionate about popcorn. He spent over 40 years developing the perfect popcorn until he found one that popped up with a 44:1 expansion ratio — bigger, lighter, and fluffier than any kernel the world had ever seen before. His personal motto was, “Do one thing, and do it better than anyone.” This personal commitment and high standards are what make Orville Redenbacher’s gourmet popping corn the favorite of so many families today.

From Seth’s post:

Is this what you set out to do? Is compromising everything going to get you to a place that was worth the journey? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just stop selling trains and do something else (lottery tickets, even) but do it really really well.

Synchronicities like this make me really happy. (: