Tag: fear

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Fear Of The Thing Itself

fear“No one is absolutely fearless. Many of us have simply learned to be good at facing our fears.” ~Theodicus

I fear that moment before someone says something I don’t want to hear. I can usually see it coming a mile away, by the expression on their faces, by the furrowed eyebrows, the subtle downturn of the lips, and then by their lead-in. “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this…” You know, that moment when you haven’t yet heard the negative but your disposition is no longer sunny because you know it’s coming. In that moment, every single time, I wish I could pause time and fast forward to the process of dealing with the news instead of having to hear it escape their lips.

I fear the dark, the pitch black dark that completely swallows me whole so I can’t even see a fraction of a millimeter in front of my own face. When there’s no light for miles around, or at least it seems that way. I remain sane through it only because I close my eyes and imagine there is a muted glow on the other side. I pretend the pitch black darkness is by choice and not because it was forced upon me instead. It makes it a little more tolerable, but we can’t truly trick our bodies to accept what we know isn’t true, not for long stretches of time anyway. Or can we? I wish we could.

I fear rejection — rejection of me, rejection of my work, or rejection of others who are close to me. When people honestly have a problem with me for whatever reason, or they dislike something I’ve spent a lot of time working on, or they dislike my family, it makes me want to scream, to holler, to lash out. But I don’t because somewhere deep down inside that fear controls me more than I’d like to admit. I would rather someone feel negatively about me but never say anything about it, to put on that fake face, but one that I believe, and go through life oblivious of their feelings than to have to face that rejection head on. And I know it makes me a weak person, and I’m trying to change it, but that’s how it stands right now. Continue reading “Fear Of The Thing Itself”

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Fear Itself

I’m afraid of heights. I never realized it until I was hanging onto the ladder on the side of that thirty-story silo twenty-three years ago, and I looked down. Everything was so far away. The people in the field across the way looked like ants, but that thought was fleeting because it all started spinning. … Continue reading Fear Itself

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Sleep is the Cousin of Death

secrets-good-sleep_311“It drops deep as it does in my breath. I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death.” -Nas

I remember when I was younger than I am now and I thought that being asleep meant dying, and waking up again was being reborn. It made me afraid to go to sleep for fear that I would never awaken in the morning. I would lie in my bed with my headphones plugged into my black and white television and the sound down low when I was supposed to be asleep. The flickering images on that little screen would keep me awake for probably fifteen minutes longer than I otherwise would have been, then my eyes would droop and I would fade. At some point during the night the headphones would get twisted up and pull themselves out of the TV and the sound would somehow be louder than I thought it was, but I wouldn’t wake up. I slept the sleep of the dead.

And I always have. When I was in high school I would always be the last one up, and my roommate would generally get me up by banging on the bottom of my top bunk or jumping on me when I had the bottom bunk. I was lucky he wouldn’t stick my hand in warm water instead. That would have been very uncomfortable and embarrassing, but I was spared such treatment at least. Continue reading “Sleep is the Cousin of Death”