The Soldier Next Door

Watching Ana is she is about to say the very word, there is a crippling fear that is settling over every bone in my body. Yes, I have done this without telling, yet saying it was because I was mad is not an excuse. So, I have put tension between us again, and we are not even married for a full day.

There is only one thing that is consuming me now…and that is…

FEAR.

Why? Why must such an emotion come to bring you down in moments when you should feel happy.

Well, guess what?

I have known fear fo a very long time. My whole life, to be precise. We’ve been together through everything, the good times and, yup, definitely the bad. Looking back, I wonder why it was there when I’ve been happy, why it questioned my happiness, but I guess it just didn’t want to feel left out of the party. It just wanted to keep reminding me that it was there, like a security blanket, promising to never leave my side.

So as I have to sit and endure the torment of silence, I need to let you, FEAR, I need to let you how I feel. After all, we’ve been through so much together, and I know you’ll always be around. I want to get to know you more to figure out how we can work together in a way so that I am hearing in a much clearer way what you’re trying to teach me. You’re in my life, and always will be, for a reason, so let’s try and figure out why and how we can be of use to each other.

First of all, Fear, let’s be clear about who you are to me. You are the voices in my head that often caution me or tell me reasons not to do something. You are that feeling in my gut that warns me to stay away from a place, person, or a situation. You and Instinct work together on that. You are also that feeling that sits just near my heart, beneath my breastbone, that makes me think twice before I do anything that could potentially make me feel vulnerable.

I feel you, and I can hear you telling me not to do it because I may get laughed at. You’re telling me this isn’t a great idea. You really are quite persistent.

You are loudest at night. When I’m lying in bed, and I’m thinking about my plans, my family, my choices, my dreams. You pop up and decide now is the time for us to have a debate about it all. Actually, where you’re concerned, it never really is a debate. Not at night anyway. At night, you decide that’s the best time to hit me with your worst-case scenarios. You do this because you know it’s at night when I’m at my weakest, most vulnerable and susceptible to you. You are strong. I’ll give you that. You do have power, and you know the exact moment when you can really pack that punch.

How you do that, I’m learning, is you have done your homework when it comes to me. You have been like a tiny little audio recorder in my head and heart, listening to all the things that may have been said to me or told to me in the past. Whether it was my mother and father telling me to “be careful,” or a culture telling me not to take too many risks, not to be too loud or daring, and that I should always be a “good,” never question authority and just do as I am told.

What you do, Fear, and this is where you’re quite the master; I have to say, is take the words, the bits that you believe fit your purpose so well, edit them together and play them back to me. Some of the words that may have been said to me by others, some of the words I read somewhere, are taken out of context but put together so well that it sounds so real.

…Ana POV…

I can see the fear in Ethan’s eyes as he is waiting for me to finish our conversation, yet, I do believe that I need not say anything more. He knows how I feel, though that is not going to stop me from feeling the way he is currently feeling.

And, yes, I do feel it myself.

FEAR.

This brings me to the question.

So what is your purpose? I can accept that you are there to protect me. You are that gatekeeper to the dangers to my physical being that you can potentially foresee, and I am grateful to you for that. I am grateful for your protection. Fear, that purpose of yours is great. Really. When you show up then, the Fear I feel manifests in all my senses heightened. I am on guard. My muscles are tense, and I am ready to pounce on anyone who threatens my family or me. That is when you, Fear, is being strong for me.

What about when you showed up when I found out I was going to have a baby, and then you really made your presence felt? And you’re still here, to this day. As soon as I become a parent, you become my constant companion, more so than ever before. And this time more powerful. But, if I was to really look at you another way, your being here with me makes me a more present and powerful mother.

Because of your worried whispers, I will do anything and everything for my child. Anything. And. Everything. I will ask a million questions to doctors and teachers if I need to. I don’t care if they think I am being irrational or stupid. I am not afraid of their opinions. Thanks to you. Again, this is your way of making me be strong for myself and my family.

What else? Why else are you here? Why else do you show up when I want to embark on a new path or risk changing who I am for the potential of whom I could become? Why do I hear your chosen voices, that audience in my head, telling me it’s ‘too difficult,’ I’m not being ‘realistic,’ that’s not how things are ‘always done,’ or even as far as ‘who do you think you are?’, and the people whose opinions you thought used to care about ‘will laugh at you’?

What are you trying to tell me there? I’m asking because I want to keep an open mind, and beating you down won’t help either of us. Neither will shutting you out or pretending you’re not there.

Let me tell you what I have learned so far; when I don’t listen to you when you’re like this is that I feel exhilarated for taking a chance. I am energized for going where I haven’t gone before. That moment just before I take the leap into my potential is where you’re there with your red stop sign trying to get me to stay on my very own well-trodden path. You’re comfortable there because that’s where you have control; it’s where you know the lay of my emotional land. Me taking us somewhere new is scary for you, Fear. I know it.

So you try to make your voice louder because you don’t want me to let go of you. But you know what, Fear? Yes, I have stopped dead in my tracks when your sign is up, stopped taking the dive, jumping into the unknown. But here’s the thing, I stop, and then I walk back a few steps and then run right on through, past your sign. I use your strength gripping me to push me forward. It sounds strange, almost nonsensical. But it’s true. I use that to propel me forward.

Those voices of yours are drowned out by the loud thumps of my beating heart, the thumps that are my own cheerleading squad telling me just to try. Just. Try. Just Try. And I know myself now just as I am knowing more about you, is that what I don’t want to feel, more than you in my head and my heart, is Regret. Fear, you come and go. But Regret, well, Regret stays forever. And Regret is the most unwelcome guest because, in most cases, I can prevent Regret from coming into my home.

And regret will be the most important thing that I shall feel if I do not let the man that I call my husband, the man that I love if I do not allow this man to follow his dreams. He has given me so much of himself that I can only but repay him in this small way. I shall never stand between him and what he wants to do.

I am simply not going to be that type of wife.Content is © 2024 NôvelDrama.Org.

So it is with confidence that I can turn to him, with brown eyes that are sparkling beyond compare, I need to let the poor man out of his misery.

“Soldier,” I pull his hand closer and lay it softly between mine. “I want you to go be the best goddamn Raider there is.”