If you spend your life looking for all the information, you won’t be able to live it.

I caught myself in a very silly logical fallacy this morning. 

You see, I have a lot of baggage around thinking I’m safe, then being proven wrong. I have a deeply rooted fear of being unable to trust my assessment of reality. When I think of the worst times in my life, they were always born of this scenario:

“I thought I was safe, I thought I was loved, I thought I was valued…and I wasn’t.”  

Recently, I met a new friend, and we’ve been cultivating this new relationship. Overall, the signals have been overwhelmingly positive. They seem to value many of the same things I do: transparency, boundary setting, proactively expressing appreciation and gratitude. Even better, many of these things came unprompted from them. This isn’t just someone showing up for me — it feels mutual. And this is especially exciting, because they’re quite different from my other friends. I see the rare opportunity for them to uniquely meet some of my needs.

Last night, seemingly out of nowhere, I got a jolt of anxiety about the relationship. I noticed the seeds of fear starting to germinate. What if I’m wrong about this person? What if there’s something I’m missing? What if things aren’t as they seem? I spent the morning writing about it: 

“I think this sweet, gentle person is about as safe as it can get. I’ve done my due diligence. There’s always more to learn, but thus far, things are promising. I’ve chosen wisely. When it comes to a person in whom I can emotionally invest, I’ve chosen as wisely as I possibly can.  So why the fear? 

…Bitch, is that part of what’s happening here? The safer my choice, the scarier it will be when I end up being wrong? 

You realize how silly that is, right? The wrong choices are right because you were right all along, and the right choices are wrong because they’re the ones that will hurt the most? You realize how there’s absolutely no winning here, if that’s how you want to think about it?

I hear you, sweetheart. Really, I do. You just want to be safe. You want to protect your future self. But remember that perfect information doesn’t exist. And if you spend your life looking for all the information, you won’t be able to live it.” 

(Yes, I sometimes talk to myself in the second person when I write. I find it very helpful in self-soothing and validation exercises.)

I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop as I wrote it. I sat up straight and actually laughed out loud.

What else could I do, but to laugh at myself? It was like watching my cat try to hide behind an object half her size. I see what you’re doing. I see why you’re doing it. But you do realize how very silly that is, right? 

I know there’s still more work to do here. I’m sure I’ll journal more about it later. But it’s as the incomparable Brené Brown says:

“If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.”

It’s in the light now. Let’s see what I can do with that. 

Sorry friends, the final PRIDE installment will come next week! This was too ripe not to share.