Courage

I hung up a banner as I was decorating my bedroom last evening. The banner read:

Courage
Not the absence of fear or despair,
but the strength to conquer them.

And it lit a little something inside me.

Most people, when they consider courage, they will talk about the man who faced a lion, or the boxer who steps into the ring fight after fight knowing it's going to hurt. Many people will talk about soldiers and policemen and firemen. And yes, these people are very brave.

But that is not all courage is. What about the old lady you see walking across the street? Most people will see nothing extraordinary about her at all. Yet what do we know of her life and of her past and present to mark her as so unremarkable?

What most people don't seem to know is that courage is not always loud and brash like a back-talking boxer. Courage, most courage, is quiet, calm and, sadly, uncelebrated.

Sometimes courage is simply waking up in the morning. Sometimes courage is letting yourself stay in bed, no matter what others say.

Sometimes courage is simply walking beyond your front door.

Sometimes courage is smiling and walking away. Sometimes courage is fighting tooth and nail.

Sometimes courage is ignoring what others say about her, and finding out for yourself. Sometimes courage is reaching out to another person.

Sometimes courage is letting yourself cry.

Sometimes courage is standing up to the bully on your own behalf. Sometimes courage is standing up to the bully on someone else's behalf.

Sometimes courage is fighting your peers and or your family to pursue your dreams. Sometimes courage is simply pursuing your dreams at all. Sometimes courage is pursuing your dreams until the very end, no matter how many knocks you receive along the way.

Sometime courage is being alone. Sometimes courage is shedding the safety of alone-ness and risking pain and torment on a gamble of love.

To all those every day, beautiful, fragile souls who know their own frailty but stand and face this sometimes brutal world anyway, I salute you.

You have courage.