Take The Lead an essay Amazon Original Stories

1044 Pages·2022·7.602 MB·English

by  Jessica Simpson

Text copyright © 2021 Jessica Simpson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission
of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Original Stories are trademarks of
Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
eISBN: 9781542031868
Cover photo by Kristin Burns
Cover design by Zoe Norvell
1.
T
hese days I wake with the sense that something is about to happen.
Have you felt it too? A readiness. A hopeful refocusing. I’ve been
journaling in the morning, while the house is still. If I start right away, I feel
like my subconscious mind is open to saying something that might surprise
me. Today it was, Are we all ready to make a change, like we’ve been
saying we are? Or are we expecting life to do it for us?
I stared at the words for a moment—from the large A to the swoop of
the last question mark—trying to figure out if this message was for you or
for me. Lately I have been collecting moments of reflection, because I knew
I’d be writing to you. Little threads we might share in common. I think
these questions are for both of us, because part of that collective “readiness”
I’ve been feeling is a hope for change. Yet, I know that a lot of people
expect something will change for them. They’re stuck there waiting, instead
of going toward something better. Looking back at when I have been
stagnant in my life, it was my fear that kept me at a standstill. It’s not that I
couldn’t see where I needed to go. If a friend wanted to get to a place of
living up to her potential, I was able to not only give her directions but also
help her pick an outfit for the journey and throw the “You Did It!”
afterparty. But I was often afraid to step into that better life myself.
So, this year I am focusing on letting go of my fears—big and small,
one by one—to get where I need to go. If I want to lead myself into
something greater than yesterday, I have to surrender the things that scare
me and hold me back.
That journey is what led me to invite a visitor to my home this week.
Or should I say, my yard. My eight-year-old daughter, Maxwell, who was
way more excited about the visit than I was, was already outside our house,
calling my name. “Mom,” she yelled, stretching it out into two syllables,
which roughly translates from kid language to “hurry up.”
We were set to do a photo shoot in our yard for the family business,
the Jessica Simpson Collection, after the remote school day had ended.
“Mom,” I heard again, the word now stretched to the end of an eight-year-
old’s patience. My daughter knows I mosey. I definitely take my time
getting from one place to the other, especially when that other place is one
I’m nervous about. Which I was. I stalled, taking one last look in the mirror
to adjust the Western-style cowgirl belt on my light-blue spring dress.
Finally, I stepped outside. And there was Maxwell, standing beside
our guest for the day, a huge chocolate-brown Quarter-horse named Jesse.
Maxwell, like anyone who loves me, knows that I have spent most of
my life deathly afraid of horses. Back in Texas, when I was fifteen, my
cousin Sarah was killed in an accident involving a horse running onto a
road. Two years older than me, Sarah was more like my best friend or big
sister than a cousin, and while I don’t dislike horses, I’ve spent decades
avoiding interacting with them. You would be surprised how many times a
photographer or music video director has suggested I start a shoot or video
on horseback.
“That’s one idea,” I would say politely.
In my yard, I observed how my body froze just seeing the horse next
to Maxwell. Instead of closing my eyes and making a joke of turning
around, I took a breath and looked at what was in front of me. It was late
afternoon, and the light had just started to soften over the mountains behind
the house. Maxwell stood, racing toward the age of nine—growing so fast
she was almost taller than me. We could already share shoes, and she was
wearing the cowboy boots I wore as Daisy Duke in my first film, The Dukes
of Hazzard.
Jesse is a horse that Maxwell rides every weekend, and he has become
one of her best friends. We live in a semirural area of Los Angeles that has
a slight feel reminiscent of old Westerns. When you enter our
neighborhood, you see a sign saying, SLOW DOWN, RELAX. CHILDREN &
HORSES AT PLAY. There are plenty of horse trails around the hill we live
upon, and Maxwell expressed an interest in riding a horse as soon as she
saw one.
We took her for a kiddie ride at a nearby stable when she was three
years old. “I’m a cowgirl, Mommy,” she said that first time in the riding
ring. I smiled and white-knuckled a fence. Maxwell never wanted to ride in
competitions, where she worried there would be pressure on the horse to
win for her. She just wanted to ride Western style—to simply connect with
the horse on the weekends in the neighborhood, without having to train
them or do anything that might jeopardize their happiness. Away from me,
she and Jesse have formed a bond I can only describe as friendship. They
are buds.
Even though that time with Jesse was precious to her, I stayed away. I
know now I was subconsciously trying to imprint my own fear onto her.
She rejected that fear. “Mom, you’re from Texas,” she would say,
assuming all Lone Star girls are born cowgirls.
“Max, geography does not matter in this case.”
But this was the day to confront that fear, so I could take hold of it. I
walked up cautiously, still keeping my distance.
“Mom, I just want you to know that a horse can feel your fear,”
Maxwell said.
I smiled at this girl we’ve raised to speak her mind. “And look him in
the eyes, Mommy,” she continued, using the soothing voice she probably
used to calm Jesse. “Just tell the horse that you love him and that you’re not
afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said, bluffing as I moved beside them. Jesse shied
away for a second, and Maxwell held the leather strap hanging from his
bridle. It occurred to me that I had allowed my daughter to take the lead. I
was proud of her.
She looked at me, then glanced down the hill that swoops sharp and
steep behind our house. “You have to throw your fear over the mountain.”
By now my husband, Eric, was out with our other kids, Ace and
Birdie. At seven, our son, Ace, goes everywhere Eric goes. They are best
friends, and I know why, since Eric is already my best friend. They are both
natural athletes—Eric is still the stuff of Yale football legend, and Ace can
hit thirty homers in forty pitches from his dad—but they also have a
kindness as innate as their physical abilities.
Ace smiled at me, here for the show. He is our dreamer and shares my
tendency to hang back to quietly do a character study on everybody in the
room. He caught my eye, and I made a funny scared face to make him
laugh. Birdie guffawed too from Eric’s arms, our in-house comedian at
twenty-two months.
I turned to the camera, me and Maxwell on each side of the horse. But
Jesse kept turning his head to look me in the eye.
“Mom, the horse is wanting to talk to you,” Maxwell said, insistent.
“He still feels you’re afraid.” I recognized the tone I used to guide her when
she was younger, and I felt I had all the answers ready.
“Okay, okay.” I turned to look Jesse in his black-coffee eyes. “I’m not
afraid,” I said quickly, in the singsongy way you might recite a half-
believed affirmation in the mirror. Then, softer, as I relaxed my shoulders:
“I’m not afraid. I love you for loving my daughter and making her happy.
I’m sorry you and I haven’t met, but I love her so much. I’m really proud of
her.”
Jesse turned his face to the photographer, and so, we did too. And as
the camera clicked once, then twice, I heard something. I turned to see Jesse
peeing. Now I know why they say, “I have to pee like a racehorse.”
Birdie clapped her hands and yelled, “Horsie, horsie! Pee pee!” Ace
fell to the ground in laughter. But Jesse was indeed relaxed now, and so was
I. He snuggled up to nuzzle my neck, and I placed my hand on his bridle,
partly to be sweet but mostly to keep him from accidentally knocking me
over.
“Here,” said Maxwell. I looked down to see she was trying to hand me
the leather strap of Jesse’s lead. I paused.
“Mom, you can do this,” she said, smiling. She’d been so serious
before, but I realized there was pride in my daughter’s voice. I took the
lead, and so she stepped back.
I can do this, I thought. Jesse and I were friends now, and I turned
back to the camera to take more photos. Then my new friend began eating
my hair. Well, my extensions.
“Hey,” I said, trying not to yell and spook him. “I mean, that’s not
hay.”
“Horsie,” Birdie said, grinning wide at Jesse. I smiled, and Maxwell
looked at me. Not too long ago, I would have found a reason to avoid this
moment with my family that I know now I will cherish. If my daughters
were not afraid, there was no reason why a past traumatic experience should
continue to have power over me for so long.
I touched the side of Jesse’s face in gratitude. I’d thrown my fear over
the mountain.
2.
I
would have never been able to let go of that particular fear if I hadn’t
done the work of examining it. Fear will keep us at a standstill, going
nowhere fast. Did the last year change you? Did it drive you to make shifts
that you were consciously or subconsciously hoping for? Or did it leave you
waiting for deliverance from all the difficulty that’s built up? When you
quiet your mind, do you feel more anxious than ever, or are you empowered
by your own strength?
If you are anything like me, you may feel your foundation has been
rocked. Home is so much more than the walls that contain and protect us;
home is that familiar sense of comfort and security when we are at ease. I
have been feeling a collective fear swirling like a Texas tornado ready to
tear through our homes one by one, a worsening instability with the power
to make no place feel like home.
So, we have to strengthen our response to fear. We can let fear take the
lead, or we can notice our fears, be aware of them, and push past them.
Sometimes, I wish I could hire a brain electrician to fix my wiring. But it
doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. It takes work to free ourselves.
For me, my method is journaling. I always write in our study, which is the
place everyone in the family gravitates to throughout the day. It’s even
Birdie’s favorite place to have alone time just with me. It’s ironic that
people feel so content here, when this is where I confront my fears and
demons through writing.
Every morning these days I say a prayer before lighting a candle to
guide me. The little flame moves in a container of smoky quartz, and I
almost always see a vision of Sarah, my cousin who was killed. Her long,
curly hair, big blue eyes, and her angelic-but-knowing smile. Sarah inspired
the journaling that has saved me through the years. When she passed at
seventeen, she left behind so many diaries, notebooks full of beautiful
entries, which her mother shared with me. Even at that young age, she
wrote as if her journals were a summation of a life, recording the lessons
she had already learned.
Right away, my journals were the one place I could openly admit what
scared me without having to ask anything of anyone else. And I could
aspire to be more than I was. To the world, for decades, I was a ditzy,
carefree girl. My journals tell a different story, and when I pull out one of
my trusty Mead Five Star notebooks at random now, I see I did an interview
where someone insulted me to my face, thinking I didn’t get the joke—
when I had created the joke. And instead of having the courage to speak my
mind, that night I wrote in the lofty language of a heroine in the Dickens or
Brontë books I loved: “I have belittled myself for far too much of my
existence, fearing the regret of my own decisions. Only I can allow myself
to move—no longer paralyzed, pretending that I can’t.”
The thing is . . . I wrote that when I was twenty-four. I knew there was
a new life waiting for me, but I still let fear guide the bulk of my actions for
years after that. I can’t reach back through the years to tell my twenty-four-
year-old self that it’s not enough to know what you have to do to change
your life for the better; you have to do it. But I can tell you what I wish I
had known, in the hope that it can help you now.
You can see in that journal entry that I consciously gave myself a to-
do list for the life I wanted: You want to be great and have an impact?
Really help people? Stand up for yourself first. What you don’t see is my
subconscious mind working behind the scenes to keep me safe in my
sorrow and free of the risk that might come with daring to make that
change. Daring to be great. Or even just happy.
There were plenty of fears to choose from to hold me back. There was
the shame of the sexual abuse I’d endured for seven years as a child, which
I never spoke of. I stayed in relationships to distract myself, where what
mattered most was what the men thought of me, not what I knew about me.
I allowed the media’s fixation on my weight to take my lifelong joy of
performing away from me, so I retreated from the public eye. When what I
wrote in my diaries became more and more of an alarm, screaming at me to
save myself, I simply stopped journaling.