Fear is a finicky mistress. It chooses when and where it will raise its head. And it doesn’t always make sense.
I’m afraid of heights but I’ve rappelled into mountain caves and down cliffs. I’ve soared through the air on a hang glider, drifted over valleys in a paraglider, and skimmed high above the ocean on a parasail. I’ve faced fear and moved through it. So I didn’t expect this moment to be the one that brought me to my knees.
August marks eight years of living in China. Like everyone who travels, I have a bucket list of things I want to do but I’m not a huge fan of traveling solo. So, when my family started visiting, I saw it as an opportunity to finally check a few things off.
My niece is staying with me for a month and I want to give her a vacation to remember.
Our first stop was Beijing. The Forbidden City and the Great Wall were at the top of the list followed by Universal Studios and a water park. It was a packed agenda for the week.
I’d been to Beijing in October with eighty sixth graders on a school trip. Torn cartilage left me with a brace on my knee and limited my participation. But this time was different. This time, it was for me, at my own pace and for my enjoyment.
We spent the first day exploring the Forbidden City and the shops around, with Peking Duck for dinner. You know, when in Beijing…
Day two was slated for The Great Wall. Hoping to avoid the crowds, we chose the quieter section at Jinshanling.
I was excited. I imagined standing on it, viewing the distant mountains, walking it’s length and soaking in its history. I thought it would feel something like the Camino trail: sacred, personal, expansive.
It was a two-hour drive to the park entrance. As we entered the mountains, I sat straighter, searching the ridges for a glimpse of the Wall. About thirty minutes out, I finally saw it: red and tan bricks snaking along the mountaintops in the distance. My breath caught. This was it. I was going to walk through history.
But when the time came and I stood at the edge of the wooden walkway leading up to the Wall, I froze. Not because of the incline. Not because of the distance. But because, as I stood atop that ridge with the wind buffeting me from all directions, fear wrapped around me like a vise and whispered, “You can’t.”
I felt exposed. Vulnerable. My knees remembered surgeries. My mind remembered every fall, every failure, every moment I had felt incapable. And suddenly, walking forward wasn’t about the Wall anymore. It was about all the fear I’ve carried my entire life. Not just fear of falling, but fear of failing, of disappointing people I love, of being wrong, of not being perfect.
It all lived in that one moment.
Sadly, I sat on a bench off the side of the trail, head in my hands, unable to even raise my eyes without my heart plummeting. I called to my niece.
I saw the Wall, just a hundred feet ahead. My head shouted, “You can do this!” but my heart sobbed in fear. My only thoughts was, “I needed to get down.”
Roy and my niece tried to help. They offered to stand on either side of me, to guide me. But it wasn’t enough. Because fear isn’t always about the body. Sometimes it’s memory. Sometimes it’s grief. Sometimes it’s every other moment you’ve been afraid rising up and saying, “Here we are again.”
So, I sent them forward and I turned back alone, bathed in sweat and failure.
Eyes downcast in both fear and disappointment, I couldn’t look up until I was back within the comforting safety of trees. I prepared my translation app with an explanation of my return to share with the operators. Hoping that, even without a return ticket, they would let me ride back down. I didn’t need it.
I bought my ticket and rode the cable car down. As I looked out at the majestically peaceful mountains, I had this quiet realization: if there had just been a handrail, one simple visual cue of safety, maybe I could have done it. Maybe fear wouldn’t have won.
But there wasn’t. And in that space, I chose safety over pride.
Two hours later, Roy and my niece returned with breathtaking pictures of an empty Wall. Something nearly unheard of at tourist sites in China. The view was serene. Quiet. Lonely. And I wish, deep in my bones, I had been able to conquer the voice in my heart and join them.
I may have failed to walk the Wall that day, but I honored the truth of what I felt.
Fear doesn’t make me weak. It makes me human. And choosing not to move forward doesn’t mean I never will. It just means not yet.
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