I've been in Boise almost six months. When I made the decision to accept this job and leave everything familiar behind, I knew I would be doing the scariest thing I had ever done. I was fulfilling a promise I had made to myself when I started a new journal back in June: to do some things that scared me. I used to think I wasn't scared of anything, but it was just because I hadn't encountered anything worth being scared of. Moving across the country, going into the wilderness, on your own, now that is scary. Because it's unknown. I deflected my family's insistence on helping, I wouldn't let them come along for the ride. This was my journey. Sometimes you just have to do something alone to know for sure that you can do it alone again if you have to. I remember pulling into Rawlins, Wyoming, in late afternoon, on the drive out here. Just a few hours before, the land had opened up and strange things emerged. Until that point, I had been on lands like the ones I knew - prairie, corn fields, the Midwest. But Wyoming is vast. There is so much space between the road and the sky, and storms on the horizon appear as though they're about to overtake you, because there's just nothing at all between you and the slanting rain. There is no cover out there, nothing to protect you or comfort you. As I pulled into town, the wet roads smelled like oil and my car struggled to acclimate to the elevation. The hotel I stayed at seemed so quaint online, but in person, it was grey cinder blocks outside, old furnishings inside. I was in a new land, by myself, and I laid in bed watching TV at dinnertime with the storm pounding the window, afraid of something I couldn't describe, lonely on the road alone.
That was the toughest point of my trip. I rolled into Boise a day later, ready to embrace whatever this place would throw at me, though still fearing the world beyond the city boundary. I used to avoid the things I feared, placed a wall between me and that which was wholly unknown or challenging for my soul. But somehow, being afraid tastes good now. Wanting to cry and recoil seems soothing, like the warmth of the fire before you dive into it. I remember when my car broke down in rural Iowa on a cold February night, back before I had a cell phone. I coaxed my limping Stratus off the highway and into the driveway of the house right at the exit. I stood at the door, pleading with the universe to please don't let them stick a gun in my face. They didn't - it was just a couple my parents' age, with a daughter my age, watching the Miss America pageant on TV. They let me use their phone, my friends picked me up, the car got fixed. I still remember that fear, that pleading with God to please just get me through it safely. My life wasn't in danger, but I didn't know what the night held for me. The fear I felt that night is still so satisfying, because I got through it.
So, now I'm saying, Let's Do This. Let's feel afraid again. Let's go into the unknown. I want to feel my heart quiver, to be alert, on edge, to force myself forward because that's the only direction to go. Because I want so badly whatever is on the other side.
