Threshold

The worst time at a working fire is when you have all of your gear on and you are at the point of the fire attack, looking at your partner, waiting for the hose to be charged while standing at the door waiting to cross the threshold. It is at the point (no matter how brief or long it is) that all of your fears will flood your brain for a moment.  That is normal and a good thing.  The voice in your head will be screaming at the top of its lungs.  It never does feel good to stand in front of a threshold, because it is right there that you can see everything that can go wrong.

You can paralyze yourself on the threshold, that is a special kind of agony.  Your own internal logic will try to keep you in places where it is safe and familiar.  You cannot apply logic to the unknown.  On the threshold you will spend a lot of time doing just that - applying logic to the unknown.  We all try to have the answers to anticipated questions.  A good answer will always come after the question is asked, not before. If you are trying to answer the question before it is asked, you are probably feeling the paralysis of spending too much time on the threshold. 

The fear only goes away when you cross the threshold.  Changing your role from observer to participant will always feel good.  It sounds strange, but being in the fight is infinitely more easy on a person than watching one from the safety of the threshold. 

Like in a working fire, there are multiple thresholds to cross.  In every meaningful endeavor you will find a ton of thresholds to cross.  The thing that will always take its toll on you is those lengthy pauses in front of all of those thresholds.

Change always sucks, it is a pain in the ass and almost always difficult but it is so worth it.   All of  the things that that were worth a damn in my life scared the living hell out of me for a while.

Love Dad