Colleen Tirtirian | Fear is a Four-Letter Word

Fear is a Four-Letter Word

By Colleen Tirtirian

Weeks ago, my husband and I were lucky enough to score a weekend getaway without our kids. We packed our overnight bags and hit the road, leaving our twins behind with the babysitters (aka, my parents). After a year of strict lockdown with three-year-old kiddos, we finally received our coveted COVID vaccines (bless the scientists and healthcare workers), and thus, decided a parenting break was well-deserved.

It was a two-hour drive to the mountains in New York. We drank in the scenery as it changed from cityscape to forest; windows down, music up. Freedom. My Type A tendencies were thrown to the wind, ready to enjoy a few laid-back days, planning be damned.

On our first full day, we decided to go hiking among the greenery and rock formations. The air was inviting and fresh unlike our usual city air, and I was feeling a bit high on life. As we ascended the rocky landscape, I caught a vision. And I am not talking about the kind of “vision” where I think of how I want my life to be and my positive thoughts and energy make it happen. It was, instead, a literal vision: A group of five or so adults in helmets and harnesses, scaling a rather tall rock-face. I stopped and stared in awe. I turned to my husband and without hesitation said, “I need to do that.” He laughed. “Umm. You’re crazy.” He thought I was joking. The gall! Well, if there’s anything you need to know about me, it’s that once I set my mind on something, it’s very difficult to talk me out of it. I reaffirmed my intention. He responded with another chuckle. “Wait. But aren’t you scared?” He asked. “No way!” I quickly replied. Was I crazy to think scaling a rock looked thrilling and was something I needed to do? Okay, maybe. Was I afraid? Definitely not. After all, I gave birth to two babies in two minutes, and after that experience, there’s not much fear left in me.

After that trip, I decided to head to our local rock gym. The first time I

went, I was alone. Before kids, there’s pretty much no way in hell I would have done something like that without a friend in tow. Since that visit, I’ve been heading to the gym whenever I can squeeze it between my ever-growing pile of “to-dos.” Learning a new skill and challenging myself mentally and physically got me thinking: Am I being reckless with my safety? Or, am I simply exhausted of living in fear, ready to take on all the things I was too afraid to do years ago? I weighed the two questions carefully and know the answer is in the latter. So what changed in me? And what does it have to do with giving birth and raising kids? For me, the answer is, a lot.

I used to spend a lot of time worrying, living in fear, waiting for things to go wrong. Historically, and perhaps naturally, there’s always a low after a high. I lived in a state of hyper-vigilance, waiting for whatever low was lurking around the corner after any victory. I was used to living in wait of the valleys after the peaks, and I became accustomed to the fear that came hand-in-hand with it. This was especially true when my husband and I started trying to build our family. Worry and fear began to take over my life during a time that was meant to be joyous. It started with stressing over failed, natural cycles. I worried: Will we ever conceive? Stress turned to fear after my first miscarriage: Will I ever carry a baby to term? The fear stayed with me in subsequent pregnancies and amplified after our second loss and again through more fertility treatments: Will this ever happen for us? I was in a deep spiral of fear-based thinking.

After another round of treatments, I became pregnant with our twins. Even after the 12-week mark, the supposed time you can “relax” – whatever that means – fear was still my albatross. There were countless mornings during that pregnancy where I would wake up believing it would be my last day carrying them. That unease stayed with me until 37-weeks when I heard my doctor tell me it was time to be induced. My doctor performed every intervention possible to get me into active labor, but it was not meant to be. Enter c-section. I naïvely believed that once the babies were born, I would feel at ease – that somehow, my fear would be gone. I can recall the relief that washed over me when I heard the first cries of my babies, followed by the doctor announcing their weights, on the morning they were born. I figured that feeling would stick around for at least a little while. But within days of arriving home with two babies in tow, things got crazy really fast. The colicky cries, the loss of sleep, and the lingering body aches and pains of pregnancy and a c-section left me traumatized. I was far from “at ease.”

When things finally started feeling easier for our family, enter COVID and a collective shock over this new way of life. After a year of being in lockdown, I feel that I am coming out of this haze with a new perspective. Fear is no longer part of my vocabulary and is a four-letter word for me. Starting a new hobby that may be, admittedly, a bit dangerous, is just one way I am surmounting my fear-based thinking. I explained this to my husband recently, and he said, “Yeah, but . . . fear is what keeps us alive.” I disagree. Living in fear made me feel like a hollow version of myself and I told him as much. He restated, “A healthy level of fear keeps us alive.” Okay . . . that, I can agree with. I don’t walk around acting as though I am invincible. I don’t take my health or the health of my children lightly, and I have a responsibility to be careful. But I also believe in being a role model to them in ways I know how: by pursuing things that create a sense of self, that build confidence and resilience. For me, learning a new skill (in this case, rock climbing) is one of the ways I am doing that.

Starting a family, giving birth, and parenting feels a lot like missing a hand-hold on the rock wall in a very compact way. When climbing, you try to grab for something that is nearly within reach, but it requires serious effort and mental focus. Sometimes you feel you’re going to overcome the obstacle, other times, defeat. But you keep going. I keep going. I want my children to see a mom who tries her hardest. For me, rock climbing isn’t about racing to the top (unless that’s what you’re going for, which, by all means . . . ). It’s about resilience. You fail but you keep going. Adrenaline enters the picture, and you get crystal clear in your mind about what you have to do to negate that fear. Just like raising kids, it’s a mental game.

COLLEEN TIRTIRIAN is a mother, writer, editor, and New Jersey native, currently writing from her home office in Hoboken. She believes that sharing the journey of motherhood, especially taboo topics, can help to normalize the difficult moments we all feel from time to time. When she’s not writing and juggling mom-duty, Colleen enjoys playing guitar and crafting (specifically, miniatures). Some may say she’s a bit quirky, but she chooses to embrace her eccentricities and channels them into her creative endeavors.

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Fear and motherhood often go hand-in-hand. How do you live with, embrace, or confront fear in your life?