Brave Enough
Letters on courage, freedom, and meaning.
Guarding your heart works until the walls become the cage.
I stood holding the phone, unable to speak. My heart felt like it might either collapse in on itself or explode. I'd never had a panic attack, but this felt close.
The dorm lobby was empty, the pool table silent under bright fluorescent lights. Hours earlier, it had been full of laughter and the belonging I hadn't yet found. Now it was only me and my one fraying tie to home. To safety.
The call dropped. I blamed the WiFi and bolted outside, gripping my phone like a life raft. My pulse hammered. People were nearby. I tried to look normal and sat at a picnic table.
Finally, the line reconnected.
"Are you okay?" the voice asked.
I could only manage one word. "No."
My girlfriend had just told me she'd kissed someone else. I was furious, but I couldn't be. She didn't do anything wrong.
Nine months earlier, she'd kissed a coworker and begged for forgiveness. I decided we'd stay together until college, then "take a break."
But the night before my flight, I caved. "What if we try an open relationship?"
It sounded mature, even enlightened — freedom without loss.
The pain of this moment proved otherwise.
Why did I do this to myself? Self-condemnation and self-pity mixed into a sickening soup of confused judgment.
I begged to return to monogamy. She agreed, and we limped along for six more months before admitting it was over.
It would be three years before I opened my heart again—and I asked her to marry me.
I fear the reoccurrence of that moment more than any other. Anything but heartbreak.
But fear never stays quiet inside us; it shapes how we show up in the world.
In Power Is Not Love, I wrote about my reluctance to tell Anna how much I love her. I know that this moment lives at the root of that hesitation. And that breaks my heart again.
Anna doesn't deserve the consequences of someone else's choices. She deserves my trust, and it's up to me to offer it even if I have reasons not to.
I'll always have reasons not to. But that's not courage. Courage is refusing to let old pain decide how you love now.
Most of us have reasons not to trust. Every disappointment becomes ammunition. We think withholding makes us safe, but it only isolates us.
Embitterment is self-sabotage. Mistrust breeds mistrust. Trust, somehow, breeds more of itself.
To keep trusting despite the pain is a near-impossible challenge. A kind of selective naïveté. A deliberate choice to forget what no longer serves you.
And it might be the only choice we have.
Where is life asking you to trust again?
With love, Ryan
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P.S. If this letter made you think of someone, please consider passing it along. It means more than you know.
Related letters you might enjoy:
- My Fear of Happiness: What preparation stripped from me—and learning to embrace joy without waiting for it to be taken away
Find all of my letters at ryancombes.com.