I’m feeling like the rubber ball attached to a paddle, one second flying high with wild excitement, the next being bashed against a wall. Success, failure, inspiration, frustration, pieces clicking into place, only to crumble apart again. A person can only ride a rollercoaster for so long before they need to vomit. Consider this my vomit.

Yesterday we were dealt a nasty blow to our dreams. The possibility of leaving Las Vegas by January has ended. The idea of two or three extra months here shouldn’t leave me in tears on the floor, but it did.

I don’t want to be here. I resist it with every fiber of my being. I make it clear to everyone I speak with that I’m only visiting. That this is not my home. I don’t feel good here, I don’t feel whole or fed or at peace here. I feel needy and desperate and lonely and empty. It took me 28 years to escape this the first time and seven months later I’m here again.

I don’t want to hear that there is a reason, that there is a message or a lesson in all this. I don’t want to hear that I need to let go, that I need to trust. I know it, but I resist it anyway.

Why? Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of feeling trapped. I’m afraid of some giant cosmic hand telling me I’m “supposed to” be somewhere that makes me unhappy. I’m afraid of losing what I’ve found or finding that I didn’t deserve it in the first place.

In this past year I’ve wholeheartedly embraced a fear that has had me paralyzed for decades. I’ve lived in fear of Too Good Too Last, and I carefully kept my life and my joy at bay. I kept myself from loving or living unconditionally to protect myself from the pain that follows loss. Does that even make sense? I’ve felt that anything good will be taken from me, so I keep things two degrees off Good just to play it safe.

I thought through this amazing journey that I had conquered all of that. But as soon as Justin broke the news yesterday I felt that crushing fear, that desperate grasp for safety, those fortress walls springing back around me, my chest tightening and my joy slipping through my fingers. I heard that old familiar voice, “See? I told you it couldn’t last. Something was bound to come along and tear our dreams apart. This is it. It’s going to fall apart and you’re going to be trapped. You don’t deserve anything more.”

Ouch. I know it doesn’t even sound rational. It doesn’t feel rational either. It hurts. And it’s scary. It’s rubbing up against beliefs and thoughts I’m not ready to examine and it’s not accepting my attempt to put it off. It’s challenging me and it’s forcing me to stretch and grow. And all of that is good. I know it’s good. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I want to face this. I want to push through it. I want to be handed a challenge and fly over it. I want to feel energized and more determined by it. I want to keep smiling, keep holding onto my joy. I want to embrace my fear with compassion.

I want to say I’m not in tears, hiding my face in my pillow and guarding myself against anything that feels good. I want to say I’m not pushing away the love I’m handed, letting go of the dreams I have for fear of more pain. I want to say I’m not questioning my spirituality, questioning whether Gd really is the bully with the magnifying glass burning holes in my heart.

But I can’t say any of that right now. It wouldn’t be real, authentic.

In this moment, right now, I hurt. In this moment, I feel a suffocating fear. This moment is messy and ugly and demanding tears. This moment is not allowing me to move.

So I’m doing the only thing this moment is asking me to do: I’m sitting in it. I’m allowing myself to cry or feel afraid or guarded. I’m allowing myself to resist. I’m embracing the messy and the vulnerable and the whiney. I’m playing the victim, and the Blame Game, and the big baby. I’m wallowing and hurting and questioning. I’m distracting myself. I’m wavering between sobs and angry outbursts.

No, it doesn’t really make sense. No, the details aren’t really that big of a deal. But this is what Life has handed my heart: not another three months, but a giant serving of Here’s Your Opportunity with a side of It’s Time To Face This Already.

It’s never about the details. It’s never about what happened or what’s going to happen. It’s about the messages we have hidden in our hearts, the stories we listen to, how they affect us, what we feel and what’s happening inside of us. It’s the bigger picture, when we can see it…and when we can’t.

I can’t see it. I can say it, but I’m too deep in it to really know it to be true. I can look at the words and reread them and still I hear that cynical, biting voice in my mind. So I’m holding onto the only two things I really do know to be true: I can be nothing but authentic. And life will ebb and flow, all things will pass.

This is me, authentic. Waiting for the fear to pass, for my ability to let it go.