I Used to Think Courage Meant Not Being Afraid

I used to think courage meant not being afraid. Somebody brave walked into a situation completely confident, knew exactly what to do and never had that sick feeling in their stomach. Apparently, I had courage confused with a Marvel character. 😂 Real courage, at least in my life, usually looks very different. I’m afraid. I don’t know exactly what is going to happen. Part of me would rather avoid the whole thing. And I do it anyway.

That was certainly true when I got sober. I wasn’t fearless. Far from it. I was scared shitless. I didn’t know what my life was going to look like without alcohol and drugs. I didn’t know whether AA was going to work. I didn’t know whether I could do what these people were telling me to do. I just knew what I had been doing wasn’t working anymore. I was afraid to keep living the way I was living, and I was afraid to die. Sometimes courage is nothing more impressive than moving your feet while your head is screaming: Don’t do this. Run. Hide. Wait until tomorrow. That’s something recovery taught me early. I don’t have to wait until I feel ready. If I waited until I felt completely comfortable before doing difficult things, I’d probably still be sitting somewhere waiting. 😂 There have been plenty of little acts of courage over the years. Walking into a meeting where I didn’t know anyone. Making a phone call I didn’t want to make. Telling somebody the truth when a lie would have been easier. Admitting I was wrong. Apologizing. Starting over. Trying something new. Sitting beside somebody I love when there was absolutely nothing I could do to fix what was happening. None of those things made me feel particularly heroic. Most of the time I just felt uncomfortable. But maybe that’s what courage actually is. Doing the uncomfortable thing because somewhere inside you know it needs to be done. As I’ve gotten older, the fears have changed. At twenty-one, I was worried about how I was going to live without drinking. At almost sixty, the list looks a little different. Health. Aging. Retirement. Money. Watching people I love get older. Losing people. Watching my children live their own lives and knowing I cannot protect them from everything. And now grandchildren bring an entirely new level of love and wonder into my life, along with a whole new list of things I can worry about. 😂 Wondering how much time I have left and what I want to do with it. Apparently, sobriety does not come with a fear-removal warranty. You just get better tools for dealing with it. And one of those tools for me has always been believing that I don’t have to handle everything entirely by myself. This is where the spiritual language in AA sometimes gets complicated for me. Whenever I hear: “God as we understand Him.” “God has a plan.” Or anything specifically about Jesus... My brain immediately starts wandering. God? Gods? A creator? Nature as God? The god of water? The god of wind? Mother Nature? The universe? Some kind of energy? Something bigger than me? I’ve never been especially comfortable with the idea of one almighty being sitting somewhere controlling every detail of my life. I had this conversation with Bob once. He looked at me and said: “Do you really believe there’s an old man with a stick giving you a whack every time you do something you think is a sin?” That stuck with me. Growing up, I heard: “See, God gotcha.” If I was doing something wrong, screwing around or playing too rambunctiously and got hurt, that was sometimes what my mom would say. That doesn’t mean my mother was a bad person or a bad mother. Not even close. She was my mom and I loved her. But like every parent, she said some shit that I eventually decided I wasn’t going to repeat with my own kids. “See, God gotcha” was one of them. I also swore I would never lick my thumb and use it to clean my kid’s face. 😝🤮 Some traditions deserve to die. 😂 The idea of an old man somewhere deciding when I should be punished or rewarded just doesn’t make much sense to me personally. Neither does the idea that everything has already been planned out. People will say: “God has a plan for you.” And my brain immediately goes: Really? Then what about the people who get terribly sick? What about children who die? What about horrible things happening to good people? Was that part of the plan too? I could go on and on with those questions. And after all these years, I’ve realized I don’t need to solve them. I’m okay with not having a perfect definition. I don’t think I need one. I believe there is something beyond me. Something larger than my little piece of the universe. What exactly is it? I have no fucking idea. 😂 And surprisingly, that doesn’t bother me anymore. There was a time when I thought faith meant having answers. Today I think faith may have much more to do with being willing to move forward when I don’t have them. Maybe that’s courage too. I don’t know exactly what happens next. I don’t know how everything is going to turn out. I don’t know whether the thing I’m afraid of will happen. I don’t know whether God, the universe, a creator, some kind of energy, or whatever is out there has any plan whatsoever. Hell, I’m not even convinced it works that way. What I do know is that I have survived things I once thought I couldn’t survive. I got sober. I lost people. I went through divorce. I watched life fall apart and come back together in completely different ways. I raised kids. I made mistakes. I started over more than once. And I’m still here. That history matters. Because when fear shows up today, I can remind myself: You’ve been scared before. Do what is in front of you. You don’t need to feel brave first. Sometimes courage is just taking the next step while your knees are still shaking. I don’t need certainty. I don’t need fearlessness. And apparently, I don’t even need a perfectly defined Higher Power. Whatever God, gods, nature, the universe or something beyond me actually is, I’m comfortable admitting I don’t know. I just need enough willingness to keep moving. The rest usually reveals itself somewhere along the way.