Look at me, I’m divorced so now I’m all moody and mysterious…

Kidding.

I’ve been ruminating on a concept for awhile and have decided I like it so I’m going to share.

You ever have a deep fear that stems from vulnerability? Even the most self-sufficient of people have vulnerabilities. You can be swimming in cash with the brightest future ahead of you, but everyone has an Achille’s Heel and it’s usually this vulnerability that keeps us up at night or stops us from doing things we might otherwise want to.

For me, my Achille’s Heel was my lifestyle. I was a stay at home mother writing books and freelancing, living in an affluent area with plenty of spare time and very few limits on what I could or could not do. I wasn’t happy because my marriage was over and I knew it but hadn’t called it yet, but I was comfortable.

I knew I was miserable, and I knew what I had to do if I was ever going to find a way out of my dysfunctional situation, but I was scared. Scared of what I would lose if I voluntarily abdicated the safety and predictability of what I had. Anxious about what my life would be because I had no idea what it would look like. Worried and lonely and hesitant to take that final step.

That final step was a form of death. It was the death of the life I knew, and I had no idea what would happen after I died.

This is me writing from the afterlife, I suppose, because the most surprising thing I’ve learned from this painful experience has been that yes, there is an afterlife. It’s scary as hell to take that final leap into the unknown, and there will be challenges here, too, but here’s the liberating thing:

You can die lots of times in your life.

This is something survivors know, and it’s important because it’s the key to not letting fear dictate your actions. If something scares you because it’s legitimately scary, like a man-sized spider or being caught in an elevator with Harvey Weinstein, that’s wise. But if something scares you because you want it but you’re afraid of what will happen if you go for it?

Take the frigging leap. Seriously. If it ends badly? Dust yourself off and congratulate yourself for having attempted the pursuit. But if you go for it, if you ask for what you want or take steps to advocate for what you really need but haven’t been getting, and it ends well? Imagine that. Imagine what could be, and go for it.

There’s life after death, it turns out, and you can make it what you want if you’re willing to work for it.