It is not a matter of being fearless. The fear is sometimes constant, but it's about moving forward regardless of the fear. Courage means feeling the fear and doing it anyway.Anderson Gillian
A few weeks ago my friend Jessica gave me a very belated Christmas present, which I totally teased her about because of her tardiness. Funny, considering I hadn't gotten her anything. She said the reason why she bought me the gift was because while out shopping for her family members this particular item caught her eye and she immediately thought of me. I opened the gift and much to my surprise it was a simple, delicate necklace. Now Jessica loved it because it mixed gold and silver. I loved it because inscribed on the pendant were the words "Fearless". Wow, fearless. I had never owned a piece of jewelry that said anything outside of 14K Gold or Sterling Silver so I was pretty excited about the gift.
The following day I met my friend Stephanie for lunch and as we were catching up with each others lives she said "Nef, there's just no stopping you your so fearless." I never thought of myself as someone who was fearless. I mean first of all anyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of waterbugs so much to the point, I am pretty sure if I had a baby and one of those dinosaur like creatures were to crawl on the child's crib, I would run out the door screaming leaving my infant to defend his or herself. And number two, I don't think there is enough drugs in the world to stop my hands from shaking and me saying Hail Mary 100 times over whenever I have to board a plane. So no, when I think of myself, fearless does not come to my mind.
But I guess "fearless" comes in all shapes and sizes, like people. And what one views as a fearless action might not necessarily be what someone else views as fearless. I guess jumping into the music industry full speed a head and banging into every wall there is might be considered fearless or just plain stupid. Or landing a casting job with no freaking experience and somehow managing to still be casting seven years later and quite well, might also be considered fearless.
However, I never looked at my actions that way, just necessary steps if I wanted to get from point A to point B. So when I decided to write my memoir last March, despite the fact I am dyslexic, did not major in English and hadn't read a book in the past six months, I didn't think about how I was going to do it I just jumped in. Fearless, or headstrong maybe a little bit of both. But I am happy to say on March 9th, the day before my birthday my book (Alphabet City, a city within a city) was optioned.
So here's to leaping into life, feat facing towards the sky and seeing what happens.
Now you will never catch me jumping out of a plane tied to some burly instructor while Alanis Morissette plays in the background, yeah that's not my idea of a good time, but hats off to you Jaygrace and to all of you fearless women out there. Til next week, rock on with your bad ass selves!!!!
