When I was younger my cousins and I were always called the cousins club. The name just naturally developed over the years. We would make music videos and put on performances for our family, but what we did most as the cousins club was explore the woods around my lake house. 

One day in summer, my cousins and I decided to go explore the bear caves near my lake house. I was excited, but also nervous. We had never done this before. Older members of my family had said when they went there as kids they could hear the bears growling from the road, that they had to run away from bears that were triple their size, with drool dripping from their sharp teeth. I realize now that a lot of the stories were made up, but back then I believed them. 

We asked my Uncle Jay to lead us around the bear caves. He's that crazy uncle that everyone has. He could reach into the lake and grab turtles with his bare hands, and move his arm through the campfire to show he can't be burned. He was glad to bring us. We walked up the long concrete stairs from the lake house to the road. Everyone was already out of breath, but we pushed forward. We got to the road and looked back and forth for cars. We crossed and went down the steep dirt hill, with multiple people falling. All of us disappeared in the thick woods. 

The bear caves were the same height as the tall trees around us. Twigs scraped my legs as we walked closer. The caves blocked the sun; a big shadow cast over my family. Every part of the forest was bright from sunlight, except for the caves. I kept quiet, trying to hear the growls my family had mentioned before. The caves were covered in moss and dirt. We started to go into them. 

Most of the spaces were compact and were impossible for my Uncle Jay to go in. My cousins and I had to go inside by ourselves. When I went inside it was very dark, the spaces were tight and my hands were always touching the walls. My shoes made the leaves under them crunch. I kept imagining a bear growling next to me in the darkness, feeling its hot breath against my face. 

Jay went inside a small space, and I couldn't believe he could fit in there. He started to say ¨Wait, I see something!¨. We all waited for him to continue speaking, but then he started to scream. My heart raced as all of us went in there to try to get him out. He just came out laughing. I sighed in relief. He was just joking, he usually tried to scare us a lot back then. We all laughed with him. 

We carried on with our adventure and went to the back of the caves to climb it. This was the part that scared me the most because I was afraid I'd fall off. Everyone started to climb, but I stayed at the bottom. I thought if I went up there, I'd fall off and die. If I fell and broke my legs, I knew I couldn’t run away from the bears. They all called for me to hurry up, so I forced myself to move. I took deep breaths, before looking at the wall, determined. My sweaty hand gripped the rough rock, and I dug my shoes into the wall of the cave to move up. I refused to look below me and just focused on climbing. My foot slipped halfway up, and I pushed my whole body against the cave. I made the mistake of looking below me, and it felt as if I was climbing a skyscraper. I kept moving, going faster to just get to the top already. I finally met eyes with my family and pulled myself over the edge on the top. They all cheered that I finally made it up, and we kept following my Uncle Jay. 

Getting back to the ground wasn't as steep as having to get to the top, so getting back to the ground wasn't that hard. But now that we were on the ground, all of us were confused about where we were going now. We blindly followed my Uncle. We reached this open field, with tiny flowers scattered all around, and the sun shining on the grass. It was very pretty. We all laid down, tired from our exploring. I accomplished pushing through my fear and got a very fun experience to remember out of it, but also something that I look back on when I'm met with a challenge today. Fear is temporary. The more times you overcome it the more you realize that statement is true.