On staying brave

In writing and in life

I was a brave 20 something. When I read and hear advice along the lines of ‘Things I would tell my 20 year old self’ and it encourages their younger self to be braver - say yes, do the thing, wear the bathing suit, take the risk, quit the job etc, its not something I really relate to. I look back at my younger self and I am in awe of how brave I was. Instead what I want is advice that goes the other way around.

How do I keep being as brave as I once was?

Me, in my risk taking 20s

By the time I was 25 I had lived in five countries. I had had my first long term boyfriend (and subsequent heartbreak). I had learned a second language, got a degree, worked in two creative industries, had already given up salaried employment for life as a freelancer and gadded about Eastern Europe for a while with my best friend.

I’ve thought a lot about what made me so brave (brazen?) when I was young. I think its roots are in the combination of my early stable childhood and my more chaotic teenage years as a young carer. I was so loved, but then life became tumultuous. I was witness to my mothers years of mental anguish and eventual suicide. And is anything difficult after you’ve done the most difficult thing - try and keep someone you love alive? What is moving countries compared to that?

The thing about being brave is, that it breeds more bravery. When risks pay off, it makes you more likely to take risks. There is more evidence in your brain that you can listen to what your gut is telling you. I learned as a teen to trust my gut. It felt as though my mothers life and my own depended on it. Paying attention to my own body, my own internal reactions paid off in a myriad of ways in all areas of my life. But what I didn’t understand was that it’s also easy to lose it, if we’re not paying attention.

My 20-something year old self was not the sole person financially responsible for raising two kids, one of whom will need support for the rest of their life. There was not so much at stake when weighing up the pros and cons of spending more time on an unpaid creative project, or more time earning immediate cash. Nor were there the financial stakes of having to invest in paid carers for my child, in order to do the creative work that will *hopefully* lead to paying work. Or even the day to day risks of using up all my mental, physical and emotional energy on trying a new activity with my disabled child, having no idea whether the costs (to me or him) will be worth it.

In my forties, the stakes now feel very high.

But the thought of being cowed by those stakes, makes me want to fight back. It makes me want to claw my way out of safety and into the realms of risk. Because although the stakes were perhaps not as high when I was young compared to now, I must remind myself that they were still relatively high. It is a risk to leave a stable job and enter the uncertainty of freelance life. It’s a risk to move countries, start all over. And it’s certainly a huge risk to let yourself fall in love.

What my younger self reminds me, is that risk is relative, and it pays to leave the comforts of safety, whatever that look like. It may not pay off every time. But the risks of never leaving safety? That also feels very high. So which one would I rather chose? A life of comfort? Or a life that is full? One where I have tried and failed? Or one where I have not tried at all? I know exactly what her answer would be.

I am currently working on a writing project that involves a lot of risks. Risk of rejection, risk of losing time that could be spent earning money, risk of failing both creatively and financially. As a parent and carer, time and energy are my most precious resources and throwing so much of it into a project that has no garanteed outcome feels terrifying. But I know what my 20-something-year-old self would say. She’d say ‘fuck it, write it’.

And I know in my bones, that she is the one I need to listen to.