Fear: the Faithful Frenemy

Fear has become both my friend and foe in the time it has taken us to become acquainted.

Stepping foot on campus on the first day of my freshman year welcomed a flurry of emotions – curiosity, dread, excitement, anxiety – that inundated me within moments of my arrival. As I stood on the sidewalk, scanning the crowds of parents and children hauling boxes and bags from their cars, running back and forth from the residence halls, and saying their final goodbyes, my throat constricted.

I was scared.

The fear enveloping my heart wasn’t concerned with the goodbyes or see-you-laters of now, it was concerned with what was to come after everyone had left and I was alone with new feelings in a new environment. I stayed up late that night, tossing the next few days and years back and forth in my head, hoping to find clarity. Knowing my track record was less than perfect, I began doubting my ability to find a group of people to call my own or find a passion that drove me to succeed day in and day out. Is my major the right one for me? Will I survive the internship shark tank? What if I can’t keep up with my peers? I worried enough that I almost gave up before I started.

In the end, it took me no longer than a day to find friends who have now become some of my closest companions, but more than a year to gather enough courage to attend a club meeting. It took me a long time to feel comfortable with my new environment and even longer to feel like I was involved in it, but day after day I step closer and closer to facing my fears and opening myself up to new opportunities for growth.

Fear can be paralyzing. It’s paralyzed me in the middle of opportunity and in the face of betterment more times than I would like to remember. But my capability to feel fear is what makes me human and is nothing to be ashamed of or something to avoid confronting. Despite the progress I’ve made, I’m still scared. I will always have something to be scared of and fear will always be a constant companion of mine, but it is that same fear that has pushed me to embark on adventures that have allowed me to blossom into the person I’m still striving to one day become.

I’m beyond grateful to have the opportunity to learn these lessons in a place that is allowing me to repeatedly fall but is continuously picking me back up to try all over again. Virginia Tech has not taken my fear away, has not lessened it in the slightest, but is teaching me every day that the only way I can let fear win is if I let it stop me from stepping out of my bubble and discovering pieces of a world that are bigger than my wildest dreams.