Barn cats. Rouse farm, Jackson, N.Y.

It occurred to me a few years ago when I was falling to pieces under a wave of pills, panic attacks, terror and disorder, that I might need to think about change. I was ready to be less fearful, for sure, but somehow it did not occur to me that to accomplish this, I would have to change many of the things in my life. Many things. I just wanted the fear to go away, but the idea that I would have to do something to accomplish had eluded me, until one night on a book tour in Texas, when I was throwing up in the bathroom at 3 a.m, sweating and gasping for breath and trying not wake up Maria by calling her, yet again. (She is a Pagan, and mostly told me to breathe.)

I heard a voice in the night which said, “yo, dude. This will not work. You have to  change for things to change.” Wow, I thought, that is perhaps true. So I did. I had no idea how high the price of change would be, both literally, in terms of money, and metaphorically, in terms of my life. I got divorced, I found myself disconnected from friends, family, my own daughter, I nearly lost the farm, I underwent several years of intensive therapy, trials with medication, was sometimes unable to write or think,and I unleashed on myself a wave of terror and dysfunction that nearly took my life. It is nice to be able to write that in the past tense., and I am grateful for that. It was nothing but a gift.

And I am not complaining. It was the best choice I ever made. It led to Maria, my photography, a different tone and style for my work, an opening up – more honesty and emotion –  in my writing, thinking, my blog, and my life, including the spiritual life I have been seeking since “Running To The Mountain,” and before. In that process, I wrote “Rose In A Storm” “Going Home,” “Dancing Dogs,” my short story collection, due out next year, and “Frieda And Me: Second Chances,” due out in 2013.

Change was the toll, the price, the access ramp to the road back. I had to change the way I think, the way I acted,what I spent and my ideas about money and responsibility,  my approach to news,  health, spirituality, work. I learned to be more honest, with myself and others, and I gave up medications, conventional health care, struggle stories, confrontations, and surrender to fear.  I stopped seeing aging as a chance to talk to my doctor about Viagra and diapers, and saw instead that it was a wonderful opportunity to be creative, and evolve into a mature, generous and loving human being.  Wow indeed. And yes, even sex.

You cannot be with someone like Maria, if you are not willing to open up, hard thing for many men. So I did. And it is good. Good things keep coming into my life, from the photos to the blog to Simon and my quite wonderful dogs. Every time fear appeared, I took it on, accepted it, moved through it, even came to love it. It started out as a battle, but is evolving into a life.

And this process is by no means over. Fear is like a stink that gets into your pores and your clothes, your neural system. I don’t know that it ever quite goes away, or that the process of change ever quite ends. A work in progress.

So the point is this. Coping with fear has a price. You just may have to actually change.