`Turk's Cap Lily (Swamp Lily), North Carolina`

I remember playing in the woods.

I remember pretending to be a horse, galloping around in my mother’s Dansko clogs, jumping over logs and broom sticks balanced across rocks. I remember believing my friend and I had found the Sorcerer’s Stone, and then later, becoming convinced that an evil spirit had come to take it out of my sock drawer, late in the night. I remember crying over stolen hot chocolate and being picked on in school for my short hair. I remember the first time I shaved my legs and the first time I was allowed to buy a real bra. I remember never feeling like I totally fit in with any one group of friends and I remember being left-out plenty.

I remember working at horse stables in exchange for riding lessons; I remember thawing out frozen hoses in the winter and avoiding the sweltering humidity of the summer by working early and riding late. I remember the smell of sweat on horse hide and dust in a hay loft, I remember wanting to be a better rider and begging my parents for my own horse to train with.

I remember graduating high school and moving to a farm in Virginia the next day. I remember mice in my bed and in the walls. I remember my first real introduction to alcohol. I remember those coworkers who disliked me because of how hard I worked and the horses I got to ride. I remember being so afraid to fail, so afraid to disappoint, and I remember allowing those fears to cripple my dreams of becoming a professional equestrian. I remember leaving Virginia and the Olympic trainer behind, with my horse in tow, and returning to Maryland feeling defeated.

I remember starting college and making friends with a group of people who I proceeded to walk with down a darker road. I remember being hurt, and hurting myself, over and over again. I remember having a job, keeping an internship, riding my horse, passing my classes, working-out religiously, partying hard, restricting my eating, and starting to model. I remember going back and forth to New York City on a Megabus—sometimes overnight—working on weekends with little sleep. I remember being afraid to stand still, afraid to be alone, afraid to miss out. I remember most of my mistakes, but some of them I’ve forgotten—rather, I wasn’t present enough to know I made them in the first place. I remember avoiding taking responsibility for my actions, blaming my problems on other people, places, and institutions. I remember drinking more, partying harder, and finally waking up on the floor of my bedroom in Bushwick, knowing I was going to leave New York City and give up any hope I had of becoming a successful model. I remembered then how much I’d already given up just to be there, that I had graduated college, moved away from my friends and family, and sold my horse, all to pursue an insubstantial dream. I remembered how much I had already endured as a model, all the rejections and insulting comments about my body, all the emails from my agent, telling me to go home and not eat—"just drink water”. I remember I felt even worse, knowing that leaving was the right thing—the only thing—to do, if I wanted to survive to be happy again one day. I remember packing and going back to Maryland, finding work at a nightclub and then a restaurant; I stayed busy to avoid being alone with myself. I remember the unhealthy relationship I fell into and fought my way back out of, I remember traveling alone to New Orleans, then the Florida Keys, then Asheville, North Carolina. I remember hearing about a trail that stretched from Georgia to Maine, as it wove its way through the mountains in-between. I remember feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. I remember deciding to walk my way to a better life, not knowing exactly what that would mean.

I remember being afraid and going anyways.

Every time.

`Photograph taken by Holly Burnham of Ivey Smith (2015)`

Wind buffeted my jacket and I found myself feeling afraid, not of the wind, but of the exposure. When I looked to my left and right, there was nothing but air for seemingly hundreds of feet. I took another tentative step and shifted my hands forward; I was crawling on all fours along a ridge at close to 14,000ft, my worn trail runners slipping on patches of snow and ice. Could I do this? Could I really make it to the top? I wondered.

The knowledge that other people had gone this way before me—coupled with a strong desire not to make a fool of myself in front of my hiking partner—kept me inching along the rocks. Higher and higher, we climbed, into the clouds. Finally, feeling stable enough, I stood up. I could see Logan not too far ahead of me, and so I took a moment to consider what I was doing. I was climbing another mountain, and so far, it had been one of the hardest, most physically demanding hikes I’d been on. The summit of Sneffels would be only my fourth peak over 14,000ft and this was still my first month ever in Colorado. A week ago I had completed a 27day and 500mile backpacking trip of the Colorado Trail, and yesterday I’d run 13 miles, up and down a 13,000ft pass, my longest and hardest run—until now—purely to see if I was even capable of moving at a pace faster than a walk. I felt out of my element, standing way up there on all that rock, and it was truly humbling.

`View from the top of Sneffels (14,150ft)`

I took a deep breath in the fog to steady myself. I can do this, I thought. And I began moving once more, up the final part of the climb. We’d chosen to go the non-traditional route, from the Blue Lakes Trailhead, and then up the ridge. Even with the clouds, the route was impressive. Massive spires of rock adorned the ridge, and the towers looked like the pipes of an ancient organ, bronze, hallowed, and broken; their forms stood out dramatically against the swirling grey and white of the sky.

Logan disappeared from my view momentarily and I knew he must have reached the summit. I followed his path and crested the rise behind him, feeling elated when I looked up to see him standing on the tallest pile of rocks for miles around. For all my self-doubt, I had still managed to climb to the top of Sneffels, after the first snow of the season and in a state of total exhaustion.

I was starting to see my fear for what it really was—its shadowy form taking the shape of something recognizable—my Ego, and its hatred of failure. My ego loves to sabotage me, it loves to tell me that I am not good enough, not strong enough, not brave enough, it knows if I decided to subscribe to those beliefs, I would be too afraid to try and thus I would never fail.

`A (very) basic photo of me, holding a silly wooden sign, because it was up there`

But there was no space for my ego on the summit that day. There was no space for anything besides happiness, wholeness, and a shared love of adventure. Those moments I spent in the clouds were, second to none, among the happiest of my life. I felt as though I’d driven all the way from Maryland to Colorado, and then walked all the way from Denver to Durango, just to be right there, on that mountain, on that day. Had I let any of my fears stand in my way at any point over the last month, I would have missed out. Big time.

I want to tell you, personally, that it is okay to be afraid of the unknown, I am.

But it is not okay to let fear stand in the way of you living up to your fullest potential, it is not okay to let fear keep you from knowing yourself more deeply and living your life more fully, and it is not okay to let fear keep you stuck in one place, mired in the pit of self-doubt.

I think the Universe presents all of us with a series of choices over the course of our lives, and our options always boil down to: doing the hard-scary-brave thing, or taking the easy way out. Taking the easy way out usually results in reinforcing our already firmly held beliefs, ideals, and preconceived notions about ourselves, others, and the world. Whereas choosing the very daunting alternative might force us to scrutinize our lives and the world around us more thoroughly, and ask the question, “Why?”

It is intimidating to admit that we do not have all the answers, it is uncomfortable to exist in a space of uncertainty when we, as human beings, actively seek resolution and sureness on a daily basis. Our lives are wired around “knowing” important truths, and yet, we so often settle for something less than the truth when it comes to our personal lives. We accept that we probably aren’t clever/attractive/fast/intelligent/strong/brave/creative enough, we stop seeking our truest selves and become comfortable in our belief that it’s not worth it to try something new, or to think a different way, or to push ourselves, because what if we fail? Nothing is worse than failure!

But something is worse than failure, and I’ll tell you what it is, it’s being trapped inside of a box that is actively shrinking around you with each passing day, it’s missing out on the most fulfilling moments of your life because you were too afraid to take a chance and cast your line out into the dark, it’s never having that significant encounter, it’s missing out on a memorable adventure, it’s failing to experience a lifetime’s worth of defining moments.

What is worse than failure? Choosing to avoid it by not living life at all.