Brave

I took my daughters to bus stops to start high school and middle school.  New notebooks, sharp pencils, carefully picked outfits.  Then I took my son to his new school, where I sent him into a crowded schoolyard, armed only with his backpack and his class number postcard.  The girls had seemed almost numb on the way to their bus stops, ready and yet terrified to face their new challenges.  Their brother asked me on our way out the door, "Do we really have to do this?"  I said to him, "You're the bravest guy I know.  You'll be fine."  "No, I'm not," said the boy who normally owns the world.

But as I watched him find his new class and stand with a group of total strangers as he waited to go inside the school, brave was all I could think.  He was scared, but he did it.  He found where he needed to be, and I can only hope it got less scary from there.  Either way, he did it.

It's so obvious to think of firefighters or soldiers or people who are sick being brave, and of course they are, but my son and his sisters reminded me this morning that sometimes brave is just being scared and getting through it.  Getting through it--whether you're taking the leap to believe it will be okay or just getting through it because your mom or the world says you have to.

Like going to a networking event and doing more than just stare at your free drink.

Like taking on work that's not quite in your comfort zone and learning what you need in order to do it.

Like asking an important person to go for coffee and realizing that sometimes she's a scared human being just like you.

There are opportunities all the time to fight through the old patterns to get to the new.  To go from the exhaustion of being scared to the exhilaration of getting through it.  The first day of school may only come once a year, but the chance to be brave--if you're willing--can happen every day.