It’s funny how fear work. One day you’re full of ideas, you’re dreaming about experiencing different things, you crave a new life… The next day, you start making excuses, you think you’re protecting yourself from the unknown; you even try to convince yourself of how bad these ideas were in the first place. But the thing is… It’s probably fear slowly creeping in.

I know fear.

Fear has been one of my best friends in the past 10 years or so. It accompanied me every day of every week, always by my side, never too far from my mind.

By choosing fear instead of action, I thought I was protecting myself from all the potential pain that could come my way. I built the highest walls around me and focused even more on others so that I could forget about my own needs and desires. It became a habit of mine.

But now, looking back at my behavior, I’m starting to realize that not making the things I really wanted to do or not trying new experiences because I was too afraid, was way more hurtful than actually doing those things. At that time, I thought I was becoming more independent and stronger, when in fact, I was becoming more and more isolated; trying harder and harder to fit into a mold I pertinently knew wasn’t meant for me.

Honestly, for most of my life, I felt like a square trying to fit in a society of circles. I just felt different. Like I wasn’t meant for the day to day life that most people wanted to get. And in the past years, I tried… I really tried to transform myself into a circle. But all I managed to do is become a squircle. An unhappy squircle, might I add.

So, these days, I’m trying to break up with fear, but it’s not an easy task. Fear is clingy, you know? It kind of depends on me to live, so it wants to stay close. That’s why I’m taking it slow. It’s not like it arrived in my life all at once, so I won’t try to get rid of it too quickly. I’ll try to show it how more confident I’m becoming; how I don’t let it rule my life anymore. And I guess, soon enough, it will understand that it’s no longer needed here.

It’s time for fear to give way to happiness.