Are you brave enough? Because I am not.

I like to hang back in the background and comfortably blend in like the big, fluffy, pastel flowers that adorn the walls of my house. Fitting in is just too important to me. It always has been.

But I just can’t sit still anymore. I’m restless. There is a big bad world out there with so much heartache and pain. People are hurting day in and day out. People have lost hope. And here I sit pretty in pink all nice and cozy on my wall. Don’t make a sound. Don’t move or someone might notice. Blend in. Wear the right clothes and hairstyle. Take your kids to the right functions. Say the right things on social media. Be on time.

But I am always late. And the right clothes and hairstyle never look right on me like they do on her. And my kids are usually the ones who make a scene at all of those functions. My place on the wall is getting old and dusty.

I have been living amongst the floral wallpaper for so long that it is starting to grow on me. Sometimes I actually think it looks pretty. Gasp! Then I come to my senses and realize that while it may look feminine and pleasant, the wallpaper really is outdated and just has no business in this 21st century world.

Denial. Been living in it for some time now concerning my wallflower status and people pleasing tendencies.

It’s hard to go against the grain; take a stance; stand out; be brave; journey into the unknown; step out of your comfort zone; try something new; chase that wild dream.

I fear that everyone will laugh at me. Perhaps everyone is already laughing at me just for dreaming about the dream and sharing it with the world.

But I am learning.

You have to get to that point in which you don’t care if anyone is laughing at you. You just have to get over that hump and expect that you will be ridiculed and make peace with it and move on.

At the end of the day I want to teach my children to be brave and to not be held back by the fear of fitting into society. How can I do that when I am so often crippled by fear? I have to get them a wallpaper scraper too and teach by example. They need to see mommy and daddy scraping off the old and trying something different to change our little corner of the world. If I want my kids to be brave enough to fight the good fight then I have to be brave enough to fight the good fight.

I’m tired of being the wallflower that watches as others claim and conquer their dreams. I want to have a fabulous story too. I don’t want to be held back by my shoe collection and social media profile. I need to get off this wall and into the light.

There is this dream, this passion that is burning bright red. It’s not my dream. It doesn’t belong to me. I don’t own it. It is bigger than that. This dream cannot be contained by four flower speckled walls and a roof. Well, at least that is how it feels when it is thumping and pounding in my chest and squeezing my heart.
Impossible. Echoes in my head. And it is true. It will be impossible to ever even coming close to the dream realized if I continue to be content with the status quo.

Daily, I waiver between painting over the walls of wallpaper in our house and just scraping it all off and starting over from scratch. I don’t know the answer to that question yet but I do know that I am tired of looking at the cotton candy flora. We have already scraped a significant amount of wallflowers off the wall but we are nowhere near being done. Those pearly rose and teal colored peonies are a constant reminder to get out of the past and into the present. I hear those flowers crying out to me, warning me that if I don’t act soon my fate will end up like theirs. I will be doomed to live a life of pretty stillness: complacent and stagnant like the images of women from decades past. Not me, nuh uh!

For too many years I have listened to countless stories of brave people doing amazing things and all the while I am thinking, “oh that is nice, thank God for people like that who are willing to take risks for humanity. People like that are so inspiring but not everyone is made for that kind of greatness.”

People. Like. That. Where does that idea come from anyway? Those “people like that” are really just normal, every-day people who made a choice to step out of their comfort zone and think creatively and live bravely towards a life uncommon. They got off their wall, took a deep breath, and while holding their dream in their hands plunged into the great unknown.

They were brave.

We don’t have to wait for “people like that ” to change the world. We can all have a part of a greater story if we are willing to let go of some of the lesser things in life. What are we waiting for?

Seriously though, what are you waiting for? What is holding you back from that dream bubbling inside of you?
What are your thoughts? Comment below, we are not meant to do life alone.