I do scary things

Over the Christmas holidays, my older sister and her husband got into a big argument because of me. They disagreed about driving me to the airport or letting me drive myself. It had been hailing since a few hours, but it wasn’t freezing so my sister wasn’t concerned. My brother in law, who won the argument, pointed to my well-known fear of driving, and insisted on bringing me there. Nobody asked me.

Once we were in the car, I told my brother in law that I could have driven myself. He replied that it was much better for him to bring me because I was scared and he enjoys driving in extreme weather. Without thinking too much about it I retorted: “I’m used to doing scary things.”

My mom often wonders how it’s possible that her daughter who seemed most scared of change and uncertainty as a child (me) was now living such an unpredictable, globetrotting existence. Now that I think about it, I guess there is a difference between not being scared of things, and being okay with doing scary things.

I’m scared of many things: besides driving motorized vehicles, I’m also scared of going near anything yucky, including stuff that comes out of my own babies. I’m scared of job interviews, serious presentations, street dogs, and trying out new technology—even something as basic as a bike trainer. I’m always worried about being bored, unproductive, and most of my life I was scared of being alone. To this day, even though I fly regularly, I’m a little afraid of being in airplanes (remember that airplane that caught fire after it landed and killed everybody?).

The thing is: I’m not scared of facing my fears. Most of the time, I find, the fear disappears as soon as I just go through with it. It doesn’t make the uneasy anticipation go away, and I’ll probably always have a whole bunch of fears, but I won’t let it stop me for very long. When I identify a fear I often deliberately confront it just to challenge myself and get a kick out of it.

Some of the scariest things I’ve done? I’m immediately thinking of the backward bungee jump I performed once, and a 40-foot jump off a cliff into the ocean. I also ate a chunk of sheepskin that someone offered me on the streets in Nigeria, and I shot an AK-47 that I could barely lift. But I don’t think those are actually the scariest things I’ve done. If you can just close your eyes and make a split second decision, that’s more like a mental trick.

The bigger challenge is doing something that takes ongoing courage to go through with, with plenty of time to worry about it. In that sense, driving my kids through a mountainous area in Oregon this summer, and being the family chauffeur for ten days there, was probably the scariest and most exhilarating thing I did last summer. Over Christmas, I even drove a stick shift, which was terrifying and therefore—felt really cool.

On a more psychological level, I regularly do things that I find difficult or embarrassing, sometimes just for hell of it. I feel like, as a diplomat and mother in a foreign country, I need to be ready to face almost anything. I shouldn’t think twice to defend myself when necessary, even if that’s just verbally telling people to stop touching or taking pictures of my children. I need to be totally fine initiating conversations with strangers and making small talk. I should be okay with being the center of attention at events, or even just when I’m out and about and people are staring at me because I’m different, or the first person on the dance floor. Being new and out of my comfort zone regularly, I need to know how to ask strangers for help, embrace change, and let go of places and people I love. And accept that this will always make me feel like an inadequate and absent family member and friend.

While many of those things aren’t unique to my lifestyle as a foreign service officer, I’m pretty sure I get called on doing this kind of stuff more often, and under more extremely circumstances, than most other people. It’s probably why my friends and family call me “strong” and “brave” all the time, which I also find deeply uncomfortable—compliments are another scary thing, actually.

My next ‘scary thing’ is right around the corner: very soon, I’ll be running through the mountains of north Rwanda, relying on the Ultra X organization’s trail-setting skills and waterstops as much as on my own preparation in terms of training, packing, and navigation. It’s a challenge I’ve been looking forward to all of last year. Meanwhile, I ran three full marathons, which really reduced my anxiety over this race. In fact, doing 50K almost seemed like an “easy” challenge because I already did so much mileage last year.

So what did I do? That’s right, I increased the distance at the very last minute! I decided to take on the 2-day 110K challenge instead of the 1-day 50K challenge. Knowing full well that I had not packed, planned or trained for this distance, which also happens to include an altitude gain of almost 2,000 meters. I couldn’t sleep that night, but I felt really good about it. It was important to me to really push my boundaries and not miss the opportunity to do so in a big way.

Stay tuned for the results on Ultra X Rwanda!

That’s not me, but it’s the Playa Forti cliff in Curaçao I jumped twice: once to conquer my own fear and once to fool my sister into thinking it wasn’t scary! Which didn’t work.

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