Do It Afraid

I stood at the water’s edge

watching as they paddled away –

Two little girls still learning

right to go left, left to go right.

Don’t go past the rock, they were told.

As if a rock could mark 

the place where danger begins.

As if adventure

ever listened to boundaries.

They paddle farther.

And I felt that old familiar thing —

the tightening, the voices saying,

‘Hold on. Pull them back.

Keep safe what you love.’

But their mother stood quietly beside me.

‘Let them go.

They’re safe.

They can swim.

They have to learn.’

So I watched.

Watched them wobble,

turn the wrong way,

drift further than they’d been told

and find their way back.

Safe.

Proud.

And a little more certain

of themselves.

Maybe courage

isn’t the absence of fear.

Maybe it’s standing at the water’s edge,

feeling fear rise

all the way to your throat

and loosening the grip anyway.

Sometimes, we are the ones

paddling out.

Sometimes we are the ones

left on shore.

Both require courage.

Both ask us to trust

what we can’t control.

Maybe that’s where adventure begins.

Not when fear disappears

but when we refuse

to let it decide

how far we will go.