Daring

Don't you hate it when people push you to do things you are scared of doing and are trying to avoid and ignore and then they go and do something like dare you to do it, so you know you could keep on avoiding but they called you out on it so you have to do something or there is no way to pretend that you are not afraid and not avoiding. Sigh. Run ons. More avoidance.

Okay, so Jessie of the Be Brave fame is daring me to make a list of the Brave things I am afraid of. The things I would like to/need to/am afraid to tackle in the upcoming weeks. So fine. If that's the way you want it Jessie. For some reason I am afraid that this list will show how really silly some of my fears are. Here they are.

• Make a be brave list of things to tackle in the next couple of weeks.
• Ask Uncle to show me how to scan images on his scanner, since mine is in storage and is maybe not worth sending down here since I might be going back in a couple months.
• Ask mom to tell me how to make her limeade margaritas. Why am I afraid of this? Am I just lazy?
• Return my defective handset to the phone company so they don't charge me for the replacement.
• Call stepdad to ask him to take me to the post office. Or ask mailman if he can take it for me. I don't know about how these things work. Why don't I know how these things work?
• Paint the drawing that I made for Illustration Friday and post it.
• Tackle potty training without backsliding or taking the easy way out by avoiding it all together and just continue on with diapers until G is in high school.
• Deal with S and our "savings."
• Figure out what I need to do to get a drivers license and do it.
• Ask step dad to take the kids twice a week in the afternoon so that I can focus on my career as if it were a real job, not just something I'm kinda doing once in a while during Sesame Street and between meals.
• Paint some things to sell on Etsy.
• Choose some old paintings to get scanned/printed to sell on Etsy
• Figure out the best way to get my art printed.
• Open up the shop on Etsy which I have been thinking about for almost a year.
• Get my back check from my cheap ass ex boss who is probably going to try to chintz me out of my money when I acted in good faith with him.
• Attempt to get a freelance writing job. (figure out the best way to go about doing that.)
• Write some queries and send them out.
• Research magazines
  
• Figure out something I would like to write for said magazines.
• Try on line magazines/publishing
• Print out my novel so far and show it to people. (Can you believe no one has ever read even a line of that sucker after 2 years of working on it?)
• Make quesadillas because the kids are so picky and I am always afraid I will make food and they will not eat and then I will either have to give them cereal instead or I will have to make them chicken nuggets or they will go to bed hungry or whatever. Dinner making has turned into a stressful thing because of a certain nameless G who won't eat normal dinners, let alone adventurous, gourmet or healthy stuff.
• Go through the two boxes of journals I have here and look at what I have done in the last 25 years of my life. Are there things to salvage? Are there illustrations or paintings I can use? Are there poems or story ideas? Are there essays in there? This is a daunting task. I am afraid of opening up the boxes and facing the mass. And I have nowhere to put them, so it will also be a mess.
• Do an outline for my MomCreates book. Don't know if I am ready to start it. It might still be germinating. And maybe I don't need another project to deal with right now.
• Cut G's crazy hair.... okay I just did that while I was writing this. It's okay. If I find something needs a touch up, I will keep my scissors handy. I didn't ruin his pretty head.
  

So here's a list of things that scare me. Some are small scares, some are big scares, some are don't-take-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone scares. I'm sure I will encounter more scaredies over the upcoming weeks. And I am under no delusions that I can conquer every last fear in two weeks, but I can take steps on them... so that's what I'm aiming for.

So how about you? Are you ready to write down the things you are afraid of? Make them concrete? Start to tackle what is right in front of you?

Go ahead, I dare you.