This weekend I did a lot of movie watching, trash TV watching and reflecting on my choice to be open to letting Mr. S be open and honest with me. Fact of the matter isI jumped to judgement on the status of our relationshiptwo years ago and I let him go without really knowing what was going on. In fact, I set him up to fail by expecting that he would let me down, as the Bio had done. We do that don’t we?(okay I do, not sure about y’all)Sometimes we let the past and the present mix and then they meld into a reality we have created out of something that really doesn’t exist at all. Luckily, I’ve been in therapy for two years and now get my own shortcomings when it comes to passing judgement and learning from my own mistakes. Boo-yah!

Why was this so heavy on my mind?

I watched a great film on Saturday night called Chloe. I had honestly never even heard of it but it was the only thing in the RedBox that caught my attention.The premise is this women played by the amazing Julianne Moorehires Chloe, a woman of the Night (Amanda Seyfried) to disprove that her husband (Liam Neeson) is a philandering jerk-off. What prompts this distrust? A breakdown in communication, a missed flight and emotional distance. The whole film is like a handbook for what not to do when suspecting a partner is cheating with someone else. Itchronicles her emotional collapse into odd behavior, bizarre plotting and eventually spinning out of control into a strange web of lies and assumed infidelity. In a nutshell, she loses it and gets lost in a whole reality that is created from Fear.

Fear is a scary thing when it consumes a person’s life.

Living in Fear is the most surefire way to lose. And I don’t just mean lost at love. When we allow Fear to move into our head space it can prevent us from looking at the Big Picture in all areas….life, love, work, family. It can defeat us when we least expect it and turn off the switch in our soul that is driven by passion and desire to do more. That desire to exceed our own expectations and excel at whatever we choose. Fear builds up walls and breaks down communication with those around us. Dependency on the thoughts that we are doomed to repeat failure rather than learn from those pitfalls and move on to succeed at some point. Fear kills us slowly and silently, if we let it.

I’ve been terrified to let anyone into my space. To be a part of my life and my family, but I am finding more and more that life is best lived with a healthy dose of caution and that Fear is only going to keep my in the past. Mr. S was let in to the whole of who I am (well, was really) and I let Fear defeat what we were trying to be, and only because I hadn’t learned to control my Fear. I let it control me. These women in the film were ruled by Fear in their own ways, and it ate them alive. It crushed them under it’s fists and crumpled them into submission.

I will not let that be Me ever again.