What Grew After Fear
When looking at a beautiful forest or meadow, we rarely think of burning it all to the ground. Fire is something that can destroy an ecosystem completely. It can devastate the wildlife in the area.
When there is fire in our lives, it can have similar effects on us. It can feel like everything we are, and everything we know, are lost forever. Like we may never recover.
But let’s look back to ecosystems devastated by fire. These ecosystems have recovery built right into them. Let’s look at a boreal forest.
If a fire tears through a boreal forest, the vegetation is consumed, there’s charred biomass, and the ground is left blackened. Depending on burn severity, nutrients in the soil can be lost.
According to Natural Resources Canada:
Wildland fires, mostly caused by lightning, influence vegetation dynamics at all levels:
And yet…
Within days to weeks, if there is enough moisture in the soil, regrowth can begin.
If we think of our own minds, abilities, thoughts, confidence… these things can all be affected in our lives in ways that feel like a destructive wildfire.
For me, it was confidence.
My story begins as a young child. Ever since I knew what words are and how they work, I have been a prolific writer. I write every day. I have filled up to two journals a week during some parts of my life. I carried journals with me everywhere, and at all times. If a thought hit me, I’d write it down, to think it out and write the thought out fully.
I’ve written essays, poetry, philosophy, comedy. Some types of writing are harder for me, and I lean towards what comes more easily. But I always write.
This is where the fire comes in, both figuratively and literally.
The fear of not being a good writer, and of others not enjoying or understanding what I’ve written or am writing, is always there. And not everything I write is good.
The literal fire comes because, up until about a year ago, every single thing I wrote—every journal I filled—I burned. I was terrified of having anyone read what I wrote.
My dream was to be an author, but my fear wouldn’t let me.
About a year ago, after decades of burning these thoughts that were so much a part of me, I made a decision. I was going to try to show my writing to someone.
I looked up the one teacher whose class I actually passed in high school. This was my Grade 11 English teacher. They were the only teacher who would let me go where my mind wanted me to go.
I was given a topic and released into the wilds of my brain.
It was freeing to be able to take a topic like, “Write an essay on what you think could be the perfect crime,” and turn that into an essay about starving children in the world. My “perfect crime” would be to not care enough to do everything in my power to help anyone I could. Because not caring about your fellow human breaks no laws.
My first piece of shared writing was a tribute I wrote to the school this teacher now runs. An essay about how they affected my sense of self by encouraging my mind to work in the way it wanted to.
As someone who is neurodivergent, I had never experienced this before, and rarely have since.
This teacher reached out, and we talked over email. They asked me point blank if I had kept up with my writing.
I said yes, but…
Yes, but I have never submitted anything anywhere, and I burn my journals after they are full, but yes.
This was not what my old English teacher had expected or wanted for me.
After weeks or months, I decided to write an essay about someone I had seen in a celebrity interview who really resonated with me on a very human level. And then I sent it to a relevant website to see if they might publish it.
I expected no reply, because the other essays and articles I’d read on this website were head and shoulders above my own.
But I was proud of myself for actually being brave enough to let a stranger read my work. It was a big step for me, but I didn’t expect a reply.
A month or so later, I got an email with my essay, with a few minor edits for grammar (I have a hard time with where to put commas 😊). They said if I was okay with the edits, they would like to publish it on their website.
I’m not going to lie, I kind of imploded in a good, yet incredulous, way.
It was like a tiny sprout poking through the scorched floor of a forest. A very small yet lush green sprout surrounded by the char.
If one editor understands and appreciates my writing, maybe my writing could survive my fears. Maybe there are more people who would read and appreciate the things I write.
And that’s where the title of this post came from.
My inspiration for this entire post is that my fear was my fire, and my bravery is my regrowth.
While I’m not qualified as a doctor or therapist, maybe there’s a sprout of truth in what I’m writing that can help someone else.
And that’s what I’m trying to do with this blog.
I want to provide my perspective on things, in the hope that it may help someone else.
What is your fire?
What could regrowth look like for you?
Where could you look for the support needed to get there?
As my prior post reinforced in Acting As If:
How can you “Keep Moving Forward.”?
