So if you read this blog, you know one of my favorite songs is "Brave," by Sara Bareilles. (Amazing lyrics, peeps... make sure you listen to or look them up!)

I have brave friends.
I have friends (and family) who have faced down cancer, who are battling autoimmune disorders that knocked them to the curb, who every day stand up to the status quo and say "screw you" and keep on going, living lives that inspire and encourage me (and others) because they are BRAVE.

I, on the other hand, get panicky when I post controversial stuff on Facebook. The backlash from one post promoting wind energy left me quivering under my quilt for days.
NOT brave.

My children are brave. Much braver than me. They say, and do, what they feel is right, whether I agree with them or not. (Yeah, going up against momma, that's a whole different kind of brave!)

I want to be brave.

There are stories I want to tell that will challenge the Christian conservative status quo, as well as agnostics and atheists and unbelievers.
There are things I want to do with my life that don't line up with anything considered "normal."
There are things I want to say that will stir people up, that will make people ask questions, and that will put me in a place of conflict. Did I mention how much I hate conflict?
But if I don't... I will violate my heart, and that, my friends, is not acceptable.

Time to be brave.

No one has ever accused me of being brave. I've been called a chicken, a coward, a scaredy-cat, and so on, since I was small. Not brave.

thesaurus.com

I love to travel, hate to fly. Love to drive, afraid of snowy roads. Love amusement parks, afraid to ride the rides. Love the ocean, afraid of being eaten by a shark. Love the mountains, can't sleep in the woods. Do you get the idea?

Sunday morning I was getting ready for church, scrounging through my closet and thinking about ideas from YouLookFab, a blog I enjoy. The author, IMHO, is cool. She's bold, confident, not afraid to have an opinion or expose herself to the opinions of others. I pulled some things off the rack and tossed them on the bed. Very stylish. Very fab.  

But what would people think?
(That voice in my head would be the infamous internal editor writers deal with. In my case, the wench goes everywhere with me, all the time. Have you ever tried to cook dinner with an internal editor yammering at you?)

I put the clothes back in the closet and started a new search for something a bit less exciting. Helena Bonham Carter popped into my head.

photo by Verleihnix viaPhotoRee

This woman is BRAVE. Not just with her wild wardrobe choices, she's brave as a performer. I mean, in the past few years I've seen her in Harry Potter as a creepy witch with an awesome name (if I had another girl, I'd want to name her Bellatrix), puffed up as the mean and nasty Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, and helping Johnny Depp make people pies in Sweeney Todd. And then she turns right around and plays Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech. That's brave.

• Brave isn't just about clothing choices. It's everything. It's not being afraid to speak to a stranger, not being afraid to make a friend, not being afraid to bring correction when correction is due. 
• Brave is facing adversity with strength and courage, not woe-is-me whining and sniveling. 
• Brave is following your heart without second-guessing every choice, always looking over your shoulder to see what everyone thinks about it. 
• Brave is creating art (music, writing, film, whatever) that crosses lines, exposes truth, and forces people to think about their lives and the way they live them, whether they like it or not. 
• Brave is taking a stand for an unpopular cause, doing what's right because it's right, not because it earns you anything. 

There's a brave person trapped inside this body, and she wants out.
But first I'm going to have to figure out a way to do away with that internal editor...