Sunday Scribblings - "Fearless"

For many reasons, I found this a difficult topic to write about. I really had to think about it. It was difficult not so much because of a mental or physical block or emotional trauma, but more because fearlessness has never featured in my personal life. Neither has fear, really, because I've mostly stayed away from situations which required either quality.

I’ve not been the adventurous or athletic type of person who climbs precipices using just their fingernails and possibly fancy boots just to prove a point to themselves or others. Nor have I been the sort of person who volunteers for relief work in the worst war-hit areas of the world. Never mind not being them, I haven’t even come close to knowing any such person on a personal level. (Unless a cousin in the Indian Navy counts.) So much for physical fearlessness.

Now for mental fearlessness. I’m not a stockbroker who fearlessly gambles with fabulous sums of other people’s money on a hunch that the shares will rise or whatever. I’m not a mother, so that rules out being fearless about bringing children into this world – and also being fearless about their future… what they might or might not become, good or bad. I’ve not even been the sort of fearless journalist who risks his life by going undercover in the criminal underbelly of society merely to get a scoop – no, all I turned out to be was the editor who rewrote the articles sent in by such fearless reporters, and put them in the newspaper.

Other than that, let’s see now – things that scare me: spiders, quicksand, being lost somewhere foreign where I cant speak the language, dentists, haggis, whirlpools, cold water, high heels, articulated lorries, leeches, lawyers (Freudian connection there, you think?), oatmeal (I take my cue from Calvin), maths, electric staplers… you name it. You can see why I was having trouble with this prompt.

I guess the closest I’ve come to being fearless was when I fell in love with a man who not only was not a Tamil Brahmin, but wasn’t even Indian to boot – and to add to that, he had been married before and had two children as well. Telling my mother and family about him, moving to the UK to be with him (leaving behind a lucrative – but hated - job in Singapore) was probably the one fearless thing I did…except that, really speaking, I was NOT fearless. I was nervous, anxious, had trouble sleeping and second-guessed myself all the time.

BUT.

There was one thing that DID make me truly fearless about my future at that point. Only one. And that was the cold fear of what my life would be if I DIDN’T make that leap of faith to be with the man who is now my husband.