Maybe I'm extra fearful, but ever since I was young, there's always been that Scary Next Thing. The first one I remember is baptism. I just couldn't imagine being at the front of the church where everyone could see me. It would be the first time I'd be in the limelight so to speak in public, and it seemed like something I could never actually do.

When I was twelve, I did it.

Then there was the Next Scary Thing: taking my driver's test. I couldn't imagine getting into a car with a complete stranger and driving a car well enough to suit them. Shucks, the very first time I tried to turn a corner in our big, old van, I almost went in the ditch. It seemed absurd that I would ever actually take the driving test. I thought I would probably literally die before I'd do something like that.

But when I was seventeen, I did it.

The Next Scary Thing was giving a speech at graduation. I couldn't imagine my voice carrying over that silent auditorium. I couldn't imagine having anything worth saying. I couldn't imagine that I wouldn't be paralyzed from stage fright.

But when I was seventeen, I did it.

Between that Scary Thing and the Next Scary Thing, there were lots of unforeseen-and-therefore-unfeared scary things that I met and conquered, whether I wanted to or not: job interviews followed by some crazy jobs, appearing before a judge and telling him in front of a full courtroom why I wouldn't participate in jury duty, driving a stick shift three hours over the mountain when there was lots of road work happening and lots of starting on hills.

But the foreseen-and-therefore-imagined-impossible Scary Next Thing was walking down the aisle at my own wedding. With everyone looking at me. And then standing at the front for the entire service. With everyone looking at me. It seemed like something that would never happen, not only because there was no guy but because it was too nerve-wracking.

When I was twenty-four, I did it. Barefoot, in a white dress with a slightly dirty hem. And I didn't care a bit that people were looking at me. Getting married was by far the best Scary Next Thing, and definitely the easiest. 🙂

The Next Scary Thing was obvious: birthing a child. It didn't seem like something I could actually do. I don't like to hurt. But we wanted a baby, and when the time came, it happened like all the other Scary Next Things happened.

When I was twenty-six, I did it.

At the time I said I would never do that again, and therefore there were no more Scary Next Things in the foreseeable future for the first time that I could remember.

But of course I changed my mind. In the middle of countless up-and-down nights with Alec, I told Eric that if I ever got a good night of sleep again I wouldn't be able to face the thought of going back to sleepless nights so we'd better just have another baby while we weren't getting any sleep anyway. 🙂

And for the first time I corralled the Scary Next Thing that I hadn't even processed yet, and suddenly I was showing Eric a positive pregnancy test, and there was a sort of surreal "what have we gotten ourselves into" feeling about it.

When I was twenty-seven, I did the impossible again, only this time it seemed much more possible, and it was.

I don't know what the Scary Next Thing is now. Maybe childbirth again. Maybe the severe baby blues that follow it. Maybe something else entirely, something that will hit me out of the blue.

It's just amazing to me the way life moves on. The things that were scary to me so long ago would still be uncomfortable to me today, but they certainly wouldn't be impossible. Maybe that's what growing up is.

I don't know what the point of this post is exactly. I just got to thinking about how there's always that Scary Next Thing and how interesting the progression of it was. I'm sorry if I've wasted your time.

Just know that if you're facing a Scary Next Thing, chances are you'll get through it, and very likely much more manageably than you thought possible.

And just in case you read this far and feel a bit let down by the content this time around, I'll let my little boys redeem the post . . . I overheard Alec saying to Sebastian, "Can you say booger?" And Sebastian said, "Bum." Oh dear. They are definitely little boys. 🙂