On My Bruce Wayne

Buenos Diaz!

Holy shitake mushrooms, people. It’s April 23rd. That means I’ve been 30 for exactly six months. Six! WTF!? I guess time flies when you’re busy shaking up everything about your life.

If you keep up with my blog or are a member of the People Vanessa Texts Entirely Too Much Brigade, you know that I’ve been living that Funemployment life. It’s not all sunshine and roses admittedly, in fact it’s a little bit terrifying. I firmly stand behind my decision though. I needed to be uncomfortable. 

Why? Well, it’s like Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises. You may recall that painful scene where Bane kicks the living daylights out of Señor Bruce, finishing the brutal beat-down with a crippling blow to the back. Rather than killing him, Bane has his mercenaries dispose of Bruce’s broken body at the Pit, a cavernous prison where Bruce is meant to rot with the knowledge that he could not save his beloved Gotham. Legend has it that only one person, a child, has ever escaped the Pit. After months of recovery and training, Bruce resolves to make the climb.

He starts off strong then reaches the infamous spot where the would-be escapee must take a giant leap to proceed up. Bruce attempts the leap twice but falls short each time, saved only by the rope that tethers him to the side of the cave. A wise old prisoner has some words for Bruce here:

Prisoner: How can you move faster than possible, fight longer than possible, without the most powerful impulse of the spirit: the fear of death?
Bruce: I do fear death. I fear dying in here while my city burns with no one there to save it.
Prisoner: Then make the climb.
Bruce: How?
Prisoner: As the child did. Without the rope. Then fear will find you again.

Now, not all fear is healthy. It can sometimes make you do some really dumb sh*t. For example: when I was seven years old, I burned the hell out of my hands on a hot stove. I endured a 20-minute car ride to my tap dance lesson in tortured silence with second-degree burns, but I refused to admit I was in pain. My skin bubbled, my eyes watered and little beads of sweat dripped down my forehead. I sat there screaming on the inside when I should have been getting medical attention, all because of the fear that I'd be punished if I admitted I'd touched the dang stove. Smart, kid. 

In my adolescence, the burns were of a different nature. Fear made me reluctant to take chances or believe I was worthy of certain affection. It made me keep emotions bottled that ate away at my self-esteem. It made me lie to cover up people's transgressions, and even worse- ignore them at a detriment to myself. Let me tell you, one can only take enough of that before a) people tell you to stop being crazy, and b) you get tired of feeling crazy yourself.   At some point, you have to hold yourself accountable for rising above your issues. If you carry old fears around as an excuse for not bettering yourself, that is the real tragedy.

Right now, fear is triple-dog-daring me to live the life I want to live because I have in order to survive. I know I've taken a risk, I’m reminded of this all of the time. I’m asked if I think I made a mistake, if I should try to turn back, if perhaps all those years of expensive schooling have all been put to waste if I'm making less money than I could if I'd stayed where I was. Sure, I'm hurt by these objections, by words said hastily and hurtfully though coming from a place of love. The temptation to give into the fear of being loved less or seen differently is a potent one, but I'm too damn old to give into it any longer.

So! That's today's lesson from life in my thirties: fear doesn't always have to be unhealthy. Harnessing my fear is giving me so much fight right now. It's my impetus to try harder, do better, and think more clearly. It makes all the clichés I've ever heard (and gagged at) suddenly speak to me powerfully, pushing me to imagine the impossible, strive to achieve it, and Pinterest the heck out of way too many quotes.

I'm ever thankful for my super supportive friends, companions who remind me on good days and bad that naysayers come with the territory. I thank them for reminding me that I can in fact do this. As one friend reminded me, I am indeed MexiCAN, not MexiCANT. On that note, I recently won a contest to have a story published in the San Diego Reader! I will also be contributing to a couple of local newspapers and get to write about the San Diego communities I love. Thank you, Fear. Thank you very kindly. I'll just be over here on my Bruce Wayne game- I'm using my fear to climb.

Bookishly (and writerly!!) yours,

Vanessa