I have a lot of fears in life.

For starters, I have six minutes 'til 3:30 AM, and I fear I will have a terrible day tomorrow for lack of sleep.

I fear needles and snakes.

I fear rejection and harsh judgement.

I fear gaining weight.

I fear my depression.

I fear feelings, especially the kind I cannot control.

I fear God.

I fear the shame that was taught to me by society and the church as a quality of being a woman.

I fear being alone.

I fear I will continuously fall in love with the wrong people.

I fear myself and what I am capable of, and that is just the beginning of it all.

Like I said, I have a lot of fears.

However, my biggest fear is that I will miss out on life because I let all these fears hold me back.

So I tackle these fears head on.

I get tattoos,

I experiment with my sexuality,

and I put my heart on the line every single day

and take the good with the bad.

I left the church,

took God with me though,

and adopted feminism as my new religion.

I do what I want, keeping kindness as my core.

After all, this is my coming of age story.