Fearlessly Oblivious Forever

When I was a kid I lived life fearlessly oblivious.  Living this way scared the crap out of Mom and Pops.  In fact I was a bit of a wanderer. 

This really should have been my childhood anthem. As a child I would get distracted and slip away from my parents and walk off. 

Once, while we were shopping at the old Adray's in Van Nuys, I was playing with a bouncy ball. One of those balls that cost a quarter and come from a grocery store toy machine.  The bouncy ball slipped from my fingers and rolled into the driveway of the store.  I ran after my ball and picked it up, just before a car braked and stopped before hitting me.  I smiled as I picked up the ball. So happy that it was back in my possession. On the other hand, mom and pops lost a year on their lifespan because I nearly got smashed by a car.

Our family loved going to Redondo Beach. The uncles would bbq. The aunties would hang out. The kids would play. My version of play would include wandering off.  At the Redondo Beach Pier something caught my eye, I'm not sure if it was something shiny or a bird, but I followed it.  One moment I was hanging out with all my cousins, the next minute I was gone.  

My parents found me in the middle of the boardwalk people watching.  I wasn't afraid. I wasn't scared. I was simply milling about.  Poor Mom and Pops. They lost another year on their lives because of this incident.  If those monkey leashes had been invented back then, I'm fairly certain Mom and Pops would have had me on one of them.  It would have prevented them from a lot of worries. 

As I grew older and got a few knocks on me I learned to be afraid. I learned to be weary. Essentially I learned to fear.  Which sucks.  When it came to writing I would get so daunted with the whole process and stop before I even started. STUPID FEAR. But these days. I choose to not let it win over me. 

In a conversation with bff Jen, she lamented how summer was halfway over. Our summer started in mid-June, since the university we work at had graduation on Father's day weekend. So really it's early in our summer.  But to her summer meant she was going to get on track with her artistic endeavors.  The current month of July meant she'd done no work towards her art.  It reminds me of fear. Her laments sound familiar.  They sound like mine when I would freak out over the writing process and sabotage my way into doing nothing by dwelling on the time that has passed.  

It reminds me that fear sucks, but we either choose to let it get to us. Choose to let it prevent us from getting our dreams OR we choose to push forward. Choose to work towards those goals.  Have I worked on that fictional novel? Not in a while. Does it bug the crap out of me. ABSOLUTELY.  But other projects have come about and I am excited with the pieces that are coming out of those projects. But I will not let the fear stomp out my novel goal.  I will find that little kid that liked to wander. She  is still somewhere inside of me.  She still likes to wander. She's still obliviously fearless.  She still likes to stand on the armrest in a Jane Fonda outfit and leg warmers like it ain't no thing.  

Fearlessly Oblivious Forever.

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