On | Paradoxes - Fear
Climbing to the Coconino Plateau during Cocodona250 2021
To be alive is to suffer. It is to struggle and face hardship. These are spaces that hold the source of all the magic.
In one week I come face to face with one of my greatest fears. I will stand at the starting line of Cocodona, a 250-mile foot race across Arizona. And though I have done this race twice before, I am just as afraid. Maybe this time I am even more afraid. I have a chilling fear deep in my soul.
But that’s because I have seen the truth. I have reverence and respect for the sacred space I am about to enter. And I understand the paradox. I know now that fear is the closest feeling there is to awe. They are one in the same. And as much as it scares me, I must go that way.
Cocodona250 start line in Black Canyon City, AZ
I have to chase what I am afraid of because everything painful is also beautiful. And fear is not the obstacle. It is the way. Two halves of the same existence: fear and awe. And yet, like so many other lessons in life, before I came this way, unwillingly, I thought I could avoid everything that hurts. And then I learned the truth…
That to be alive is to suffer. It is to struggle and face hardship. And that those spaces hold the source of all the magic. When I question every ounce of my being, I am forced to become, to grow. I become free to come fully into my being.
I didn’t know this… until my son died four years ago. He was seven and a half. And I couldn’t pick myself up off the floor. I didn’t know then that what hurts us also blesses us. I, like so many, thought the goal of life was to find neverending comfort, ease; that somewhere out there for me was endless joy and “happily ever after.” And then he died suddenly. Without warning. And the pain of chasing the facade of happiness transformed into the pain of seeking to heal my broken heart.
So I went in search of something. What? I had no clue. And over miles and miles and days and weeks, I grew. I changed. I learned. I evolved. Somehow by existing through the darkest parts of me, and seeking out something, anything to mend the pain of loss, I found something greater than I ever expected. I found that the hard things are not darkness. The hardest things are the source of truth in life. I learned that by breaking, we come back together different, realer, bolder, stronger. And the moments that hurt us most, if we can just hang on… and keep moving, will become the source of experiencing every beauty of this human existence.
Two years ago when I first showed up to this race, I had no idea what to expect. I fumbled and I failed. And I kept getting back up again. I was completely and forever changed.
And so I go back. To face what scares me, the paradox, the truth. Fear. And freedom.
Cocodona, I can’t wait for you to consume me, beat me, destroy me… believe in me, love me and build me.
In one week.
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
