It takes Big Kahunas, and I found them.

“You are strong, you are brave, you can do this!” I repeatedly told my five year old at her Kidstrong class. It was a fitness and agility class for the young ones, this affirmation a sip of strength as the children met the challenges on the obstacle course. She would struggle and I would repeat the line to her, like a mantra. And her chest would grow as she overcame the challenge with self-pride. I believed it, my kids were going to be strong and brave and do anything. Opening a jar of peanut butter, “You are strong, you are brave, you can do this.” Running a mile round the pond, “You are strong, you are brave, you can do this.” I believed that if we used this enough, it becomes part of the psyche, and that they would believe they could do difficult things because they had the secret sauce. Secretly I wished for them to be braver and stronger than me to meet life unshackled.

When it came to me, I questioned myself. If I could be repaired and re-ingrained with those affirmations. I looked to people who went skydiving, bungee jumping, free climbing, or firefighters or surgeons or other daredevils who put their life on supposed danger. These people are brave beginning to end. Public advocates challenging entire governments with their call to justice like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, MILCK, Malala Yousafzai, Gloria Steinem. Writers advocating though their written work like Chanel Miller, Marya Hornbacher, Suzy Favor Hamilton and so many more. They are brave. The write with conviction, they are probably brave even before putting pen to paper. Or maybe they were brave as they spoke, maybe they got brave after they spoke. My grandest proposition is that they were brave all along.

I was not brave all along. My bravery an ember in the past hushed into ashes. I tried doing brave things like writing. It didn’t even cross my mind that bravery would be necessary. It was something I felt needed to be done and I cranked at it. I learned in time that what I was doing was writing in prose. My prose rushed to finish, running away from the past as fast as my fingers could click clack that keyboard. I learned about craft, as I learned, I learned I was writing what in the literary world would be called a memoir. I learned the craft in order to write old lore that told of sickness and pain and darkness. All the things that have me collapsing into a fetal position from the fear of recollection. Bravery was nowhere in sight. Yet I wrote in blind faith that as the other women who have inspired me with their stories, that I will touch someone’s heart with these words struggling to stay on the pages. The thought that I would never know gnawed at me but what I lacked in bravery I compensated tenfold in dedication.

The prose in check were finally ready for external eyes and I shared them with readers for feedback, some friends, some professionals, some strangers. In their feedback, “Unflinching,” “Fierce,” “Courageous,” and “brave” stood out to me. How could these descriptors lay on my feeble shoulders? I was aghast as it was not courage I poured into the story, every letter that decorated the book spelled survival in my mind. I began to analyze and re-evaluate all the validation I was receiving – the ultimate gift to a writer.

I sat in confused stupor but with gratitude and validation that my words were indeed being received well. I pondered the fact that a form of bravado had formed and was required through my words even if it was unintentional. What I had presented on a platter for public consumption were born of a clouded and shrouded mind concealing the horrid pain of my past. I must have been brave to have the experiences I had and stand here today scribing my truths. I must’ve been brave handing the written fears to my publisher, finalizing the publication of my words. I must have been brave when I shared it first with the small group of people and now with the world. I must be the one with the Big Kahunas.

Truth be told in my experience with bravery it is of reflection. Only occurs when I take stock of the characteristics that make me. The act of bravery itself sometimes seems to appear as necessities, survival tools, blind faith. In this space, things that scared me before are so little now, captured and locked in a little box. It is in looking back that I recognize the ballsy moves I made to this end that I simply wasn’t able to appreciate in the state of trepidation and fear. But the courage gad always been there in whispers clouded by terror. It took an immense amount of courage to survive, to live, to tell. I have survived, lived and now I tell.