Here's the part that still doesn't make sense to us. One of us grew up with no real trauma in it at all — and grew up afraid of almost everything. The other one lived through the trauma and grew up fearless.

So that's where this one starts. And then it goes somewhere we weren't expecting, because nobody warns you about this part: fear doesn't shrink as your life gets better. It grows. More to love, more to lose.

We talk about the afternoon fear made one of us freeze at exactly the wrong moment, and the guilt that's still sitting there years later. The night we shut the bedroom door, ignored everyone's advice, and asked each other how we actually wanted to live. And the people we've watched make their lives smaller and smaller to stay safe — who turned out to be every bit as afraid, just about smaller things.

We're not going to talk you out of your fear. We still have plenty of ours.

Pull up a chair.

The question we leave on the table: How is fear showing up in your life right now — and how are you responding to it?