One Year of Facing Fear

Also known as the hardest story I've written all year.

Brazenface is an illustrated newsletter about facing fear. It started as a year-long project, but the leaps outside my comfort zone are continuing into 2023. New scary stories are on their way, but below is a teary-eyed celebration of year one:

You’ve reached the end of a year-long experiment in facing fear. Data has been collected. Evidence—both photographic and graphic—has been recorded across Argentina, the tantalizing Tri-state area, France, Italy, Spain, London, and the dance floors of Berlin.

Surprisingly, your test subject, Tatiana Gallardo, never shit her pants. But she did confront her fears—including finally shedding her tears. The essay below explains what happened.

An accurate self-portrait.

A few days after Christmas, I turned 25. As a child born on the cusp of the New Year, the end of December is always an incredibly reflective period for me.

I sit with myself—the Past, Current, and Future Tatianas—and pour myself an uncomfortable glass of real talk. Am I living with intention? Am I chasing the life I want? What’s going well? How am I complicit in what’s not?  

At the end of 2021, my annual self-inventory left me angry. 

While the life in front of me was good, the life in front of me was not the life I wanted. I felt like a coward. I was burnt out, frozen, and furious at myself for nodding along on Planet Play-It-Safe. After ending up in the hospital, I realized fear wasn’t just limiting me creatively; it was holding me back in every aspect of my life.

A year later, I sat down and conducted the same self-inventory and began to sob.

As I reflected on where 2022 had taken me, I cried because I had walked away from so many things I never believed I would—or could: alcohol, New York City, dead-end friendships, my mother’s stocked fridge, my first full-time job, the expected path.

I cried because I had felt the buzz of creative purpose again for the first time since college.

I cried because I had rediscovered my inner kid and all her forgotten delights: drawing, dancing, telling stories.

I cried because I had realized how blessed I am to get to tell stories for brands and call it my day job. 

I cried because I had spent six months of the year abroad and alone and happy alone.

I cried because I had endured the most intense loneliness of my life only four months earlier. 

I cried because I had fallen in love—first with Buenos Aires, then a best friend, then Berlin.

I cried because I had finally, finally, finally found the courage to share my creative work with the world and launched a project—this illustrated newsletter—that was being read by thousands of people across 75 countries and 48 US states and had somehow gotten featured on the Substack homepage twice along the way.

The first time I got featured and nearly fainted.

I cried because I had been so fucking scared to launch this Substack newsletter.

I cried because I had pushed myself to do it anyway. 

I cried because I had pushed myself to continue doing something that scares me every single day for all of 2022.

Screenshots from my nightly journal.

I cried because I realized the scariest thing I did all year wasn’t wild or in-your-face or conventionally huge—but it had been huge for me: I picked up the phone and bared my pain. 

I cried because rather than take the familiar and comfortable route (bury my feelings and pretend like nothing happened), I had called my friend and communicated that I was hurt by something she had said.

I cried because that small, quiet moment over the summer had transformed my willingness and ability to be honest with the people I love. Hanging up the phone, I felt alive! Brave! Open! And get this: closer to my friend! 

I cried because that moment helped me stop “playing it cool” and start being vulnerable.

I cried because I no longer considered myself to be a coward even though I still felt afraid all the time.

I cried, maybe most of all, because I had become a person that was now comfortable crying. 

Every time I have tried to write this piece, I have started crying again. Not because I’m sad, but because I’m indescribably moved by where this year and this project has taken me.

Before I launched Brazenface, I rarely let people in. I had feelings you couldn’t feel. I had ideas that never saw the light. And I had a desire to “one day” have the guts to put myself and my creative work out there. 

“Putting on my brazen face” was never about putting on a mask. It was about taking the mask off. It was about showing up fully—in spite of being scared. While I created Brazenface to hold myself accountable to create, this project has changed how I hold myself accountable in everyday life.

That’s probably why I have written over twelve versions of this story and I still don’t know if I’m getting it right. I cry every time. Including right now. I’m moved to tears because today marks eight months since I stopped drinking. Because today marks a major milestone for this newsletter. Because today I’m putting on my brazen face and telling you about both.

So how do you squeeze a ridiculously transformational year into a thousand words? 

How do you talk about a year where you’ve grown personally and professionally in ways that you don’t know if you’re ready—or honestly, if you’ll ever be ready—to talk about publicly? 

How do you end a year-long project about facing fear when the fact of the matter is you face new fears every single day? 

I guess the answer is: you don’t. You keep going. 

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Tatiana Gallardo is a teary-eyed writer and illustrator. For one year, she has written a new bio at the bottom of every Brazenface story. She likes the idea of an evolving identity. But no matter the week, one thing has remained true: Tatiana Gallardo is grateful. She’s grateful for everyone that has subscribed, emailed, and followed along with this newsletter. 2022 changed her life. And it’s been because of all of you.