Grateful

I am learning to make room for life because I have realized that life is grander than the limitations I give it.
Let me explain.
A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated a birthday. I invited a bunch of people to a place I was already planning to go anyway, a nice little spot that has a DJ every Thursday. At the kind behest of a friend, I created a Facebook event and invited some people and let other people invite themselves. It was a grand event. I danced and people bought me drinks to consume. The next day I was full of exhaustion and needed a couple of naps to get back to normal functionality.
But it was all worth it because life is grander than the limitations I give it.
Let me explain.
I live in fear of things going horribly wrong. It is irrational and I try to live by logic. But just because it makes no sense does not make the fear any less real. It is the kind of fear that creeps up at night as you lie in bed. It tickles at the edges of your thoughts and worms its way into the middle. You try to swap it away like some incessant fly but it keeps coming back.
I fear dying from a horrible disease. I fear a loved one dying from a horrible disease. I fear everything in my life falling apart. I fear that I will never find true love. I fear that once I find true love, it will hurt me beyond my imagining.
The good thing is I hide my fear well. I keep it tucked away. I look to my faith that in the end, I will be fine, that things will work out. I remind myself that my fear of what might happen does not guarantee that it will happen. I remember that a moment of bad does not equal the totality of what my life will eventually become.
But it is hard. That is where gratefulness comes in. That night, the night of my birthday celebration, I smiled at those who showed up. I had lots of hugs. I danced with beautiful women. I smiled that goofy smile of mine.
The celebration that night was a celebration of all the good things I had -- friends who pulled me through the tough times and listened patiently to my rantings, the roof over my head, the job that at times frustrates the hell out of me but I love nonetheless because it allows me to put pen to pad on a daily basis, the salsa dancing and the poetry and the joy of knowing and engaging with a wide range of really cool people.
I'm grateful for every hard shift of my life because it shaped me into who I am today. But I'm still learning to make room, to shed some of that fear because it is still there, keeping me from leaping full-fledged into everything that should be in store for me.
As open as I believe myself to be, I know that I have walls to keep some stuff out, tiny obstacles I subconsciously put into place to ensure some things don't transpire. One of my friends, the same one who urged me to put up that Facebook event, gently and lovingly reminded me of those obstacles.
Seeing yourself is a tough thing. You want to see yourself as always the good guy, the nice guy, the noble hero.
But the truth is you're not the hero of your story; you're not the villain either. You're you and parts of you are ugly and nasty. I'm not a nice guy. I can be an asshole. I'm capable of hurting people. We all are. It is what makes us human.
And knowing that makes me humble; it makes me grateful; it grounds me in who I am and who I could become if I just make room for life because life is so much grander than the limitations I give it. It always was.