as another year draws to a close ...

I find myself reflecting on what has gone before. I'm not usually overly sentimental or nostalgic. I am rather good at leaving things behind, and disappearing without a trace. However, there are times when we discover that what we think we have moved past is still clinging to us. We have not moved past it, but are still draging it in our wake. So, what is this weight? Fear.

Fear that no matter how old we get, or how far we go, we never seem to escape. Kate Holden put it rather well:

"We tend to think of fear as something dramatic and epic: before a battle, or in the face of catastrophe. But it's part of our lives, and every day many of us find ourselves floating on that peculiar breathless tingly cushion of air, swallowing the hollowness in the throat. We must be so brave, even the littlest of us."

And we are. All of us. Even though it's hard, and we feel like cowards. Each in our own way, we are brave. Brave enough to be ourselves. Brave enough to risk letting other people in. Brave enough to think things will be differnet. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes the fear grips us the moment things don't go to plan, and we jump at shadows before running for our lives.

But when do we stop? How far do we let the fear drive us? When has enough time passed for us to be able to look, objectively, at what scared us so badly and see it for what it actually is, rather than what we thought it was?

Sanskrit based languages have 96 terms for love, but we only have 1 in english. I have loved in the sanskrit sense. Without reservation, limitation, or expectation. Sometimes I have been loved in return.  Other times I have not. I have not always loved wisely, or well. But I have loved. Either way, I can look back on this year and be certain about one thing. I regret nothing.