Freebird

“Fear is a Prison” the wall read on the beach wall at Muizenberg. And, ironically enough, this had been a thought in my head for the past couple of days, a thought that never quite got words pushed behind it. Afraid keeps you inside. It limits possibilities and chains up potentials. It’s…well, it’s scary.
The thought had come to mind because the thought of living in a third world country could ignite that prison within anyone making such a drastic change. It could lock up apartment doors and close curious eyes, put its cold hand on my shoulder and say, “Seriously, dude. It’s scary out there. Stay inside with me.”
And perhaps this sounds dramatic and overenthusiastic or journal entry from hypersensitive phobia prone bleach and rinse sweaty palmed nail-biter girl, but that is simply not the case. My paranoia rarely exceeds that of an average person, (unless it’s directionally based: then I am certain I will get lost and robbed, or eternally taunted for the continued confusion on which way is North, despite the compass I wear around my neck). But even the most reasonably tempered person has those bouts of fear in one regard or another: those inhibitions that prevent the real goal from being obtained, the honest words from being spoken, or the right actions from being executed. It’s biting your tongue when someone gets pushed around, or not trying it out because of what others may say. That’s reasonable enough: that’s human, and those are fear-bars.
One thing I learned right away is that Africa is full of bars. There are bars in my window and bars on my porch and bars on the gate just outside, and no bars on my cell phone and no bars for the internet, and no bars that it’s safe to walk home from at night. And it’s a decision I make every single day if I allow this to be equivalent to bars on my heart.

I learned how to surf today. Well, began to learn. And maybe I didn’t stand up quite right and maybe I was thinking obsessively about sharks for a Colorado girl who generally lives painfully far from any sort of significant body of water, and maybe my eyes burned like salt and I wished my Mom could just teleport on occasion and come hang out when the board hit my head. But when I finally rolled with that wave and felt wind and sand and, well pure determination through my veins; when I looked out at the beach ahead, at the mountains and low clinging clouds, when I saw where I was now and the progression of this journey, I realized in an awe inspiring instant that, hell yeah, these things are scary, but I have never, ever been so free.