Four years ago, I decided that I did not wish to live in fear. I am getting closer to accomplishing that goal, one of the great remaining goals of my life. Fear will always be a part of me, and it will not, I think, ever be completely gone. But it is not invading my nights for the first time in six decades, and only fleetingly occurs during the day. It is odd, exciting. I’ve been to therapists, spiritual counselors, acupuncturists, done meditation, some yoga, prayers, talked to ministers, priests and rabbis, taken and abandoned countless pills, read Bibles and volumes of the Kabbalah, developed an intense spiritual practice that is the center of my life, along with my great love for Maria.

I have learned to walk through fear. It is a geography, a space to cross. Although many of us live in fear, fear is not reality. It is the space between us and the reality of our lives, or at least of mine. There are many things to be concerned about in life, but I have never been afraid of the things that were dangerous to me, only the things other people told me were dangerous to me.

I was sitting with a group of people the other night, and they were talking about the foolish old men who never go to see doctors and take their tests and pills until it is too late. I wondered if they knew they were talking about me. In all of their stories, the men suffered awful injuries and deaths because they had chosen to avoid what we call the health care system. What, I wondered, if those men made good choices for themselves, good trade-offs good decisions about their lives and bodies. What if they were right?

This is the path of fear, I think it presents us with so many external commands, pleas, demands and choices, many of them those of other people. If we don’t make them, we are almost never presumed to have been correct, or made the best decisions for us. This is how fear works, I think. You just never get to be yourself.

I am getting there, moving closer.  The fear that overwhelmed me and nearly killed me is leaching out of me, and I would surely rather die that live in it again.