When Matt is away and I settle in our room for the evening, my imagination tends to get the get the best of me.  I hear every creak, and my mind begins to play out morbid scenarios.  If you were to ask me on those nights, I could tell you my defense plan against a home invasion and where I would hide with our three kids.  By the time I get in bed, my heart is pounding, and all I can do is pull the covers up over my face, squeeze my eyes shut, and hope I fall asleep quickly.

I’m sure this frame of mind contributed to the whacky dreams I had the last night Matt was gone.  In one dream I was a pop artist trying to perform, but the venue did not provide security for me.  My scariest dream that night, however, was a dream full of friends from high school.  Two of those friends had a sad story about their current mental conditions, and for some reason they would instantly turn into sociopaths and try to kill anyone in their paths.  Unfortunately, I was in the one friend’s path, and I spent most of the dream trying to escape his wrath.

In the middle of the night, I awoke, terrified.  I was breathing hard, and it took me a minute to comprehend that I had been dreaming.  The strange thing about dreams is that no matter how bizarre and unrealistic the plot is, they can still feel incredibly real.  As I was lying in bed, coming to the realization that I was now awake and not running away from my former friend-turned killer, I realized that I had to use the bathroom.  But I couldn’t move.  I was paralyzed with fear.  I rolled over and again squeezed my eyes shut while squeezing my bladder harder.

The next morning after I ran to the bathroom, I began to think about my dream and the power I let fear have over me. I had allowed fear to keep me in bed, even though I had a need to get up and was extremely uncomfortable. Of course, my fear was understandable–I was alone in a big, dark bedroom, and I had already let my mind run wild thinking of the three little lives I would protect if anyone tried to cause us harm.  In the daylight, I was more rationale, and, thankfully, fear didn’t control any part of me.

Or did it?

While I was priding myself on my ability to live my life without fear hindering me, a particular incident rushed up to the front of my mind and smacked me in the face.  Recently, my husband pressed me on starting graduate school.  I have a little tuition money for having served in the Air Force, and I only have a few years left to use it.  True to his nature, Matt began searching for different programs that I might enjoy, and he showed me a creative writing program from the University of Georgia. And while I don’t think now is the right time for me to begin a program, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that fear caused me to dismiss Matt rather quickly.

As I looked over this program, intimidation seeped throughout my body.  In one moment, I scanned the required courses, and I felt an adrenaline rush!  The chance to read and discuss literature again with my peers, to write essays and challenge my mind–I wanted to start now!  But almost as quickly that moment of excitement, that positive rush of adrenaline turned to a rush of fear, a moment of flight.

Sometimes when I’m writing my blog, I can’t remember basic grammar rules even though I used to teach high school English.  Since becoming a mother, I have lost brain cells as that part of my brain that used to think clearly and analytically is a little mushy. How could I write a graduate level paper?  I’ve been out of practice for too long…I don’t want to receive scorn from my professors, pity or disgust at being the little stay-at-home mom who needed something to do.

Part of the admission requirement is to submit a portfolio of writing, one piece having to be so many pages in length.  I’ve never attempted to write a novel or anything of substantial length; what would I submit?  And even if I got into the program, would I write anything that my professors or peers would think worth reading?  Most of my writing thus far has been about my children, my marriage, or my faith, topics I’m not sure academia would warmly receive.  I don’t have the great American novel swirling around in my mind–I have my experiences as a wife and mother, a Christian trying to understand God’s will, and they are what I know right now.

As I relived all of these thoughts, these doubts, the other morning, I was ashamed.  I have never talked myself out of something because of fear.  I’ve traveled to other countries by myself; I joined the Air Force after getting married and starting a career–I’ve never let fear determine my course or paralyze me from doing something I want to do.

And I’m not going to let it today, either.

I still don’t think now is the right time to start a graduate program.  I’m not emotionally ready to take on that challenge while raising such young children, and Matt and I have some other goals that we need to reach before I make such a commitment.  Yet when the time is right, I’m certainly not going to back away from a program that excites me because I fear that I might fail or not win others’ approval.

Because fear should never have that kind of power in our lives.  We should never allow fear to paralyze us, to keep us from taking a step in the next direction.  After all, there is no sense lying in bed with the covers pulled up over our faces, squeezing our eyes shut, when the bathroom is a mere fifteen feet away.