Borrowed Courage

This past Sunday, I found myself standing on the edge of something.

Not just on the edge of a stage at Red Rocks, with 10,000 people staring back at me. But on the edge of a choice: to retreat into a painfully familiar fear, or to step forward anyway.

I was about to perform my poem, come sit by my garden, with my husband Trevor and his band. Standing side stage, waiting for my cue, I could feel the nerves rising in my body. My heart raced. Every part of me wanted to disappear.

So I knelt down beside my eldest, Kai. I took his hand and told him how nervous I felt.

“Do you remember your summer performance at school?” I asked. “Do you remember how scared you were to go on stage in front of all those people?”

He nodded.

“That’s how I feel right now.”

He wrapped his arms around me and rested one small hand on my back. Then he looked me in the eye and, in his sweet, gentle voice, said,

“I know you can do this, Mama.”

It is hard to explain what those words did to me.

For years, I have been the one reminding him that it’s okay to be scared. That courage isn’t the absence of fear, but something woven deeply with fear itself—and the willingness to go forward anyway. That we can do hard things, even when we don’t believe we can.

And then, in a moment I am still sitting with here, days later, he handed me back all the lessons I’ve tried to instill in him.

It was his belief in me that carried me onto that stage.

(before i continue, i wanted to share that today also marks the opening of paid subscriptions here at house of flowers. i'm so grateful for everyone who has made this little corner of the internet what it is, and deeply excited to continue tending it with you. if you'd like to support this work and receive subscriber-only essays, monthly musings, writing prompts, and other creative offerings, you can learn more below. thank you, always, for being here.)

Become a Member

We often talk about courage as though it is something we must summon entirely on our own, but I don’t think that’s always true. Sometimes courage is borrowed. Sometimes it comes from someone who loves us so completely, who believes in us so deeply, that we begin to believe too.

As I’ve been processing Red Rocks and that little (big) moment with Kai, I’ve come to realize that this wasn’t the first time someone else’s belief in me had carried me across a seemingly impossible threshold.

There were so many years of my life marked by a deep lack of self-worth and self-confidence. Particularly in my teenage years, I was navigating a sea of grief and grappling with the idea that maybe because life had dealt me a really difficult hand and a lot of trauma, maybe I was simply broken and would never find my place in this world. In the face of that, and with no real anchor of self-love, I rebelled. I acted out. I flirted with the wild edge of a path of self-destruction. Those were some of the hardest years of my life, and it took me a long time to heal from that version of myself.

I bring this up because amidst the backdrop of that dark period, there are, in my memory, a few bright lights, a few north stars, in the form of mentors, teachers, and elders who carried a torch of hope for me when I could not carry it for myself. Even in my faded memory of that time now, the most striking thing about those elders was that despite everything I thought and felt about myself, they saw something in me and chose to believe in me even when I didn’t—especially when I didn’t.

In school, they gave me extra time on tests. They sat with me through assignments that felt impossible. In the quiet corners of their offices, they let me grieve. They let me cry. They championed me when I had very little ability to champion myself. More than anything, they believed in me before I knew how to believe in myself.

They gave me belief I could borrow.

And I borrowed it.

Looking back now, I think that borrowed belief may have saved me. It gave me the courage to keep going. To imagine a life beyond my grief. To reach for things I never believed I was worthy of.

A few moments after stepping onto the stage at Red Rocks, I opened my eyes and looked out at the crowd and something deeply unexpected happened.

I was having fun.

The moment felt something like joy. Something like freedom.

A younger version of me could never have imagined I’d be there. I used to be paralyzed by stage fright; I wouldn’t have considered standing on any stage, let alone one of the biggest. But there I was.

Later that night, and in the first moments of the morning after, Kai looked at me and said,

“I knew you could do it, Mama.”

I wonder if this is one of the most sacred things we can offer another human being.

To believe in them before they know how to believe in themselves.

Not certainty. Not solutions. Not a map. Just a hand on their back. A reminder of who they are when they’ve forgotten. A willingness to hold a vision of them that they cannot yet hold themselves.

Those teachers and mentors could not have known what their faith in me would become. They could not have known that years later I would be standing beside my own child, trying to offer him that same gift. Or that one day he would hand it back to me.

“I knew you could do it, Mama.”

And every time he said it, I felt something settle a little deeper inside of me.

He knew.

And because he knew, for a moment, so did I.

A small note:

Over the past year, House of Flowers has quietly grown into something I cherish deeply. What began as a place to share poems has become a gathering place for thousands of us, and one of the most meaningful spaces in my creative life.

Today, I’m opening paid subscriptions and inviting those who feel called to step a little deeper into this little house of flowers.

Whether you choose to become a member or simply continue reading, thank you for being here.

I’m so grateful for each of you.

Truly.

With great love,

Emory

Upgrade to Paid