Calamity Jane

I think I’m quite a scaredy cat but I’m learning that I am quite brave too. I have read that bravery is not about not being scared but about being scared and doing stuff anyway. And this I do! Because I am scared a LOT, but I do a LOT of things anyway, I must be brave! I love the approach to fear written about on The Fluent Self blog. 2 days ago while away for the weekend, I found myself riding through a forest I’ve never ridden in before - Harkerville near Knysna. Such sweet awesome singletrack through deep cool jungle, with monkeys! And thick creepy vines, and spider webs across my face as I bumped over rocks and hopped over logs and skipped my bike around trees and pretended I was a super-amazing mountainbiker way up ahead of everyone else in my imaginary race. Over a stream, and across a small bridge, whoop whoop! Yippeeeeeee! When I got to the end I was so exhilarated I wanted to ride some more. The friends of friends I had been riding with had to go home, and I still had another hour before my boyfriend would be done riding and I didn’t feel like hanging around back at the car. So I set off down another trail on my own. And then I started thinking that although I had a cellphone in my backpack, there was no cell reception...and I started to worry.

“What if I fall? What if I really hurt myself? How is anyone going to find me? I told those people I was doing the yellow trail and actually I’m now on the blue trail because it looked more fun, but no one knows where I am! What happens if I get mugged? I don’t think there’s anyone else on this trail because if anyone had come down here there wouldn’t be this many spiderwebs across the path still. Oh dear, maybe I should turn around, but I can’t because that means I’ll had to ride more uphills.”

But while all this “alack and alas” talk was going on in my head I also heard another voice saying

“Hey, can you be quiet? I’m trying to have some fun! I LOVE this trail! It’s sooooooo cool that I am all on my own! It’s an adventure! I love this! Yippeeeeeee! Maybe there will be some more cool fast downhill in the jungle bits!”

Suddenly it came to me, that the first voice was just Calamity Jane speaking. It’s the first time she’s introduced herself by name actually. But gee, now that I know it, what a perfect name for her! She’s always voicing her opinion on what calamity might befall me next. Luckily, after learning quite a lot from reading blogs (see, it’s not just wasting time when you read a blog) I realised I could have a conversation with Calamity Jane instead of telling her to shut up or getting totally freaked out. I thanked her for her concern in keeping me safe, and acknowledged that she had raised some valid points about my safety. But I was also pretty firm with her that sometimes to have fun, you have to take a risk. I also pointed out that it was a bit late to fix some of these things but that in future I would bear in mind that riding through forests I don’t know on my own is perhaps not such a good idea.

The cool thing was that once she had been listened to, she was OK, and I got to keep riding and having fun!

So here’s to you Calamity Jane for being my protector. I’m not going to try and silence you because I’m learning this makes you shout louder. I will listen to you – and I mean really listen. I can see now that I used to ignore you and the truth is I ended up in some bad situations where bad stuff happened because of this. And you got pissed off about that because you knew I was being stupid and putting myself in risky situations. It makes sense to me now that as a result of all those horrible scary situations I got into, you went into overdrive and had to yell at me about dangers all the time. So I had to spend quite a few years with you bossing me about. You didn’t trust me to keep myself safe. I see that now. It finally makes sense that every time you smelt a whiff of danger you tried to get me the hell out of the situation, even when it turned out it was just a job interview or a party where I didn’t know anyone! But you had learned that it was no good waiting until things got really bad to warn me so instead the moment I felt uncomfortable you’d start shouting out the list of things that could go wrong and telling me to run!

I’m sorry. I really am. I’m a bit older and wiser now and I really do see that you bring a lot to the table. In fact, I can see you make an excellent lawyer because you’re instantly able to see what 20 things might possibly go wrong which is a helluva useful skill when drafting a contract just maybe not so good for everyday living. I’m starting to see that you might be one of my greatest assets rather than a weakness. I promise to become a better listener. Thank you Calamity Jane, for all you do to keep me safe, it means a lot that you care so much about what happens to me.

PS Just to warn you Calamity Jane - I’m going on a massive mountainbiking adventure next week and I’ll be riding 7 days in a row in new places with a bunch of people I don’t know yet. I guess I’ll see you there!