Sydney Mitchell
Sonia Begert
English 101
11 October 2012
The Leap
It is the thought that often kept my mind awake long after dark. The idea which was so all-consuming it permeated the underlying base of my every conscious thought and invaded my dreams. A feeling that settled heavy in my bones, threatening to cement me to an everlasting state of inadequacy. Fear of uselessness. The threat of failure.
My dreams melded with reality. Strange dreams involving impossible tasks and a sense of wrongness too heavy to be left on the shoulders of a mere child. So vivid, so real, so tangible that no amount of screaming or shaking or soothing could bring me back from the cold clutch of my nightmare. I dreaded sleep for fear of the terrors that accompanied the night, the evil that resided in my subconscious and was let loose to twist my thoughts as the barriers of my mind relaxed and I fell asleep. Dreams of a man tossing a thousand pennies into the endless sands of the Sahara, ordering me to find them all, reminding me that if I should fail this task, death would ensue. I knew failure was imminent. I knew I was striving towards an unattainable goal. Even at barely seven years old, I knew.
Fast forward to 2009, the genesis of my seventh grade year; new school, fresh start. Word gets around fast in a school of 120. Being the new kid was equivalent to being a shiny object in an aquarium teeming with gold fish. All the fish wanted to look at me, they were drawn to me; I was fascinating to them. Yet just as a goldfish will soon forget what it was looking at, I rapidly became old new. The drama, insecurities, changes and social awkwardness that come with the territory of being thirteen began to settle in. Boys began to make fun of me, girls were gossiping about me…and then even one of my teachers chimed in. I had just finished a science test, but as I left the room she asked me to stay behind. She pulled the test out and said that my grade was too high, proceeding to accuse me of cheating. After being called a cheat, having my grade reduced by thirty percent and feeling humiliated beyond belief, I grabbed my backpack and left. Angry and hurt and utterly betrayed - not only by the other girls and guys in my class but by the teacher too – I walked straight out of the school and went home. That was the day I took a leap. I decided to leave traditional schooling and face a whole new world.
Homeschooling was a scary concept. Homeschoolers are weird and awkward and completely socially inept…according to society, that is. I walked into school in the Fall of 2010 to find eighteen sets of eyes, much older and perhaps wiser, staring into my own, sizing me up. Guys with facial hair and knuckle tattoos and girls that didn’t have braces, unlike myself. I sat down, trembling a little, and thus began the two year journey that changed my life. I spoke with my teacher and after seeing my test scores and getting a sense of my go-getter attitude, she spoke a few magic words. “If you are willing to work hard, you can probably graduate high school in two years’ time.” That was it. I was hooked. Geometry, Algebra II, Egyptology, Human Anatomy, Honors English; I breezed through them. An insatiable thirst for knowledge motivated me to work day and night. All the while I had forgotten about the dreams. They were a distant memory…but the thoughts were still there. Fear. Failure.
The fear drove me. It drove me to be the best. It drove me to surpass expectations, even my own, and to graduate at the age of fifteen. It drove me to what I thought was my full potential. At times it was difficult to stay dedicated. With only myself to ensure I did my assignments and to make sure I got everything done in time to graduate, I had only myself to hold accountable for whatever happened. Yet that fear…it was evil underneath all of the success it brought me. The rotten feeling of the fear began to waft up, like trying to cover up the reeking, rotten stench of sweat with cheap perfume. It made me sick. Everything seemed…wrong, as if my soul had been hardened. No amount of success or compliments could take that feeling away.
So I turned to God. I began to journal, reading blips out of the Bible here and there, in addition to a few of those terrible self-help books. As I began to dig into my past, remembering those dreams, they surfaced again. Frantically clawing through miles of dunes, brushing away mountains of sand grain by infinitesimal grain. I woke up, sweaty and anxious and ran to the bathroom to hop in a cold shower. I had rid myself of these dreams, they were gone! How could they be back… the torment had begun again.
It came to me in sleep. During one of the moments where I was not churning inside due to a nightmare, I dreamt of…freedom. That is the only way I know how describe the feeling that came over me. When morning came, I began to face my fears. As cliché as it is to “face your fears,” there is truth to the method. I just stopped caring. I focused on having fun and being with friends and, even though it was summer, forgetting about school. Forgetting about the future and instead living in the moment, that was my cure. I stopped worrying about plans and college and a schedule and being perfect and I allowed myself to just be FREE. It was an everyday choice that I made moment-by-moment. Sometimes I struggle with the fear of failure, sure. The fear will never go away. But now I am able to deal with it.
Fear, terror, bullying, rebellion, anger, anxiety, walking by blind faith, success, revelation, redemption…my journey began with a dream and ended the same way. No longer does fear rule my life. Instead, the only thing I am afraid of is fear. Failure is not a possibility because of the person I now know I am. No matter what I do, where I go, or who I meet I will never fail. Because the greatest barrier of success is the fear of failure. And that’s not an issue anymore.
This is coming along very well!
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