Originally published in The Newnan Times-Herald, read here.
It was fall, cold mornings, warm afternoons, and trees shedding their leaves like snow.
The day mattered to me because my mother had bought me a new winter jacket. I was fascinated with it the moment I saw it. Everything about it felt like an adventure, the pockets, the color, the weight of it on my shoulders. To a kid with a restless imagination, it felt like armor.
My mother came up behind me and commented on how nice it looked. As she lifted the price tag on the sleeve, I saw her shoulders drop slightly. Her expression changed. I didn’t understand the look on her face.
“Are you okay, Mom?” I asked.
A small smile returned as she said, “Is this the one?”
“This is it,” I replied.
At the time, I had no idea how hard my parents worked to make ends meet. I just knew that, despite how little we had, I never felt like I was lacking anything.
Once home, I loaded the hidden pockets with snacks and strapped on my olive-drab belt and canteen. Then I headed out to meet my friends at our imagined base camp. After a while, an older neighborhood boy wandered over. He was bigger, stronger, and older, everything that felt intimidating when you’re young. It didn’t take long before he decided he wanted our snacks.
The four of us scattered in different directions. He watched for a second, chose his target, and came after me.
I ran hard, but it didn’t take long before he caught me. He grabbed my jacket by the collar, and in the struggle, my arms slipped free. When we separated, he stood downhill from me, holding my jacket up like a trophy.
“You’ll never see this again,” he taunted. “What are you going to do about it?”
I stopped backing up.
It wasn’t anger as much as clarity. I realized that if I turned away, I would leave more than a jacket behind. I would be crossing a line where he was in control. My eyes left my jacket to meet his. There was something in his face that I seemed to glimpse, confusion perhaps, because I had not responded. I didn’t answer. I didn’t run. In that instance, I lunged forward.
His face changed instantly.
He didn’t expect it. He dropped the jacket and jumped backwards as I snatched my coat off the ground. I wasn’t proud and didn’t feel victorious. What I actually felt was the feeling of taking control back.
That moment has stayed with me, not because of the confrontation, but because of the decision. In that moment, my new jacket was secondary. The affront was a wrong that I could not live with, even at that age.
Fear doesn’t announce itself loudly. It’s an undertow we feel around us and inside us. Sometimes it stands right in front of us, visible and undeniable. When that happens, our instinct is often to retreat, to give ground quietly for the sake of peace. But that’s how fear feeds and gains power when we surrender to it without question.
The real strength that day wasn’t in force. It was forward. To turn towards, approach, engage.
Fear loves and thrives in the shadows. It grows when it goes unnamed. Always trying to convince us that loss is inevitable. However, when we face fear and engage deliberately, it shrinks to its actual size, a shallow lie.
Now I want to turn to you: what fear have you been avoiding? What lie has it persuaded you to accept? Name it. Look at it honestly. Then take one deliberate step forward, not recklessly, not angrily, but with resolve.
You don’t have to win everything today. You take the lost ground back one step at a time by moving forward.
That’s how you reclaim what matters.
And quietly, without bravado, you can say, “You don’t get to decide for me.”
I’ll leave you with that. Until next time.
