Fear is only a feeling, it cannot hold me back.

People who swim outdoors in winter all describe the same thing: the first thirty seconds are unbearable, and then they aren't. The sensation wasn't lying. It was genuinely cold. What it got wrong was the forecast — it insisted this would continue at full volume forever, and it didn't.

Fear behaves similarly in the body. Heat in the chest, hands that won't sit still, a stomach that has decided to leave. All real. All temporary. None of it load-bearing. It cannot pin your feet to the floor. It can only make walking feel like more than it is, for a while, until you're in.