Small

Many times in life you may be asked what your greatest fear is. I used to always answer that failure was my greatest fear but last night while at a business after hours event I realized that my biggest fear may not be failure, well not exactly. I fear being small. I fear not being known and being forgotten when my life is over. I know that my family and friends will remember me but will the world or at least a small part of it?

I always thought I was made to do great things. I have overcome so much in life already and I always assumed because of that strength that I would amount to something. That I would be known and important but how wrong have I been. I know I am young but so far I am unknown. I am just another face in the world that as a whole can be overlooked or fade into the background with no consequence or despair for my absence. This realization hit me last night. I am afraid of being small, especially living in a small town. It could be different living in a city full of millions of people or event hundreds of thousand but to be in a city of less than 50,000 people and not be known by a large part of them terrifies me.

I understand that this fear seems ludicrous to many or even selfish. I understand I probably come off as a power hungry, attention seeking person. Maybe I am, I don't really know but I do know that this idea of being left behind and forgotten has been something I have struggled with for months now. I think it has finally made its impact over the past few weeks when I had to turn down the job I wanted and when I ran into many acquaintances from college that have done incredible things since leaving college. One owns his own company, one just took over a company in town, one has written a book, one has completed his graduate program and half through his doctorate, one is a now doing residency in a hospital and countless have successful careers in large companies or are completing their graduate programs. But not me; I have done none of that. I am unknown in this town and have no idea how my life will go now that I have a teenager at home and am a caregiver to my mother (more on that frustrating story in the next post.

So here I am today, having a pity party realizing I have amounted to nothing as of now and feel that my life is so of course of what I wanted it to be. Will I actually be known one day? Will I be successful? Who knows?