This is an installment of Suzette Andujar’s weekly column “As I Was Saying.”
Okay so I’m a big scaredy-cat. I watched “Paranormal Activity” and didn’t sleep again for a month. Like legit, I stood up for hours and stared blankly into the dark just terrified that something was going to grab my feet. I was one of those people who thought the “Blair Witch Project” was real. Oh, and clowns. Stephen King is massively talented, but I can’t look at a sewer without checking for a red balloon. Thanks SK! I don’t watch scary movies anymore, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t still get scared at life.
Life is scary. Bills, work, deadlines. I mean, come on! “Dead.” “Lines.” It means that death is at the end of the line; death! So odds are, that in life, one will face a scary moment. How are we supposed to deal with it? Running the other way is totally an option; however, at some point we’re just going to have to face it and when we do, we’ll know that deep inside we had the power to deal with it all along.
Take Bruce Leroy for example. In the 1985 cult classic “The Last Dragon,” Leroy wanted the coveted “glow” that literally lit the entire body when one achieved the final level of martial arts. He tried to find it in the wrong place and had scary obstacles, like a man named Sho’nuff who was obsessed with having people kiss his converse in a show of submission and a video arcade owner (literally named Arkadian) who stopped at nothing to make his girlfriend famous (only in the 80s, right?). I’m sure that based on what you’ve read, you’ll be running to stream it, but I have to share that through a series of events, Leroy discovers that the glow was within him all along.
We all have that glow, that elusive bravery chip inside of our head that tells the rest of our body that we can achieve anything; we just have to find it within ourselves. I found it once in the 6th grade. I wanted to join the talent show. I was determined to sing “A Whole New World.” The teachers running the show told me that I had to get a partner to sing the Aladdin part. Well me, being the introvert that I am, told them “Thank you, but I will not be singing with a partner.” The other kids laughed at me and I seriously started to doubt myself. I was scared, but I ignored the cynics, went on stage, and in front of the entire school sang both parts of the song. Sure it looked silly, especially toward the end, but I had that glow. My body was gold and I had the power of elevation.
If only that power stood with me throughout the rest of the events in my life. Like when I was scared of night-time feet grabbers…and a clown. No matter the obstacle, you can do it; you got that glow!
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