The Fringe Tells You Exactly Where Your Bullshit Lives

The Fringe Tells You Exactly Where Your Bullshit Lives

I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately.

The fringe. That edge. That place where your brain starts feeding yourself every excuse in the book. Every reason why you can’t. Every reason why you shouldn’t.

I’ve realized that the fringe tells me exactly where my bullshit lives. Think about it. You aren’t weak. You aren’t incapable. Every story we tell ourself gets louder right before we grow. Right before we grow. Right before we cross the fringe.

I’m not ready. What if I fail? What if people judge me? I’m too fucking old. Maybe later. Bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit. 

It doesn’t mean those thoughts aren’t real. They are really fucking real. But are they really true? Probably not. And the interesting part is that everyone’s fringe is different.

Mine today is definitely not the same as it was ten years ago. 

When I first started posting on social media, that was definitely my fringe. Fuck. People can be awful. I worried what people would think and wondered if they would judge. Then, I just got tired of giving a shit. I know I have good information to share. If someone doesn’t like it, they can keep scrolling. Or as my friend, Pay Flynn, says – they can take the breadsticks and leave. Keep your comments to yourself. 

Fringe crossed. 

Same thing with writing. Years ago I blogged all the time. I wasn’t teaching, I was telling stories. The Euclid house. The Prospect house. The kid I used to be. Kid Peggie. Those stories weren’t workouts or macros. They were pieces of my childhood. That was a different kind of vulnerable. I wrote them anyway. They mattered to me. I didn’t expect everyone to understand them. 

Fringe crossed.  

So my fringe is not social media anymore. It’s somewhere else. 

Last year it was saying yes to a photoshoot with three incredible women and fellow coaches, Beth, Amy and Kelly. My fringe wasn’t the photoshoot itself, it was everything my mean girl voice tried to tell me before the photoshoot. You’re 61. You don’t belong here. This is for younger women. People are going to judge you. But that’s where the actual work was. It wasn’t in the workouts or the other things that went along with it. It was calling bullshit on every single one of those thoughts. More than once the voice crept in, but I kept going. 

Fringe crossed. 

Right now though, the fringe is doing another photoshoot. The fringe is getting Snatched again. Same badass fellow coaches. All of us together doing it again.  You would think doing one photoshoot would make the second one easy. It doesn’t. The bullshit started reading the new script. You will be 62! Do you really want to do this again? Jesus Fuck. What if this one isn’t as good? There it is. The fringe. And it’s not because of the camera. It’s because of the story and that voice. People already saw you once. Maybe you should quit while you’re ahead. That’s exactly how bullshit works. Fringe not crossed….yet. 

I also find my fringe in places that don’t make for exciting instagram posts. Letting people help me. That’s hard. I like doing things myself and I like figuring things out. But maybe this next version of me doesn’t have to carry everything This version might ask and might delegate and maybe let go of some things. 

See what I mean. Bullshit. Different story. Same fringe. Haha. 

But who knew that the fringe moves? 

What scares the shit out of me today, will probably be normal in a year. Then something else becomes the edge. Something else becomes the fringe. That’s the point. We are never done. We just keep meeting new versions of ourselves. 

The life I live isn’t on the comfortable side of the line. It’s on the other side of my bullshit. I cross it and then I find the next fringe. 

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life negotiating with the same bullshit. I want new bullshit. Bigger bullshit. The kind that shows up because I kept growing. The things that used to scare the hell out of me don’t anymore. Now I have new edges. I have new stories and I have new fringes. You never outgrow fear, you just outgrow old fears and meet new ones. I hope I never stop meeting them. 

Fringe crossed. Now where’s the next one?