Irrational fear #8: Conquered.

Tonight I had the opportunity to go to a reading/signing by Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches. An old friend of mine recommended it to me back in March, and I finally picked it up last week. I finished it on Monday, and then immediately had to look up when the sequel is due out (my birthday, as it turns out!). I also discovered that Harkness would be in Woodbury on Wednesday, January 18th.

Obviously, I needed to go to that.


We had an offsite work party today, to recognize another fantastic year in Creative. We went to Sergeant Pepper's Grille and Bar, where we ate a lot of food, won some prizes, and had some drinks. I won 2 hours off! (The fact that I currently have 3 hours to work off due to being sick this week is irrelevant...woo winning things!) It was a good time, and I was reminded again how much I truly like (most of) my coworkers.

As I was driving home, it started to snow. By the time I got home, I was so overcome with fear of driving in the snow at night that I decided I didn't want to go back out to go to the reading. Jess didn't really care either way, as she was only going because I was forcing her anyway, so she was fine with that.

Here I sat, on my computer on the couch, getting slightly crankier by the second. I stood up, and I said, No. Fuck it. Let's go. Get up, we're doing this, I want to go see Deborah Harkness!

We got up, we got Jess some tea and a cheeseburger, and away we went.

Fear #8: Crippling fear of driving in the snow at any time of day but particularly at night: Conquered.

For tonight, at least.

Irrational fear #1: dinosaurs.

When I was four, we took a trip to the Witte Museum in San Antonio, where we lived at the time. They had (actually, have, still to this day) an exhibit called Dinosaurs Unearthed. It's a whole big display with plants, environments, and full-size dinosaur models. I was wandering along with my family, staring up at the huge dinosaurs from my tiny four-year-old vantage point, having a grand old time. I'm staring up at one of them -- a gentle brontosaurus, of all things -- when all of a sudden, it swiveled its long, life-sized neck, looked directly at me, and ROARED.

I climbed my mom.

I think that's probably when my fear of dinosaurs began.

When I was, I don't know, eight? Nine, maybe ten? Anyway, some time after we had moved back to Minnesota, my sister and I sat down after school one day and watched Jurassic Park. I had a little puppet on a stick, like this guy:

Mine was a white cat. You could make it turn around, or hide inside its little cone. For some reason, I had this with me while we watched the movie. I don't remember much of the movie (I've watched it since, and I still couldn't give you a good plot summary, and I definitely couldn't tell you how it ends; I think I block these things out), but I do remember what I was doing during the movie: peeking out from behind my cat, who I used to translate my fear. I made the cat stop watching during all the scary parts. I'd twist it away from the screen, or if things got really intense, make it hide in its cone, maybe let it peek out of the top a little. I spent most of the movie curled up tight to myself in my chair, peeking around my poor, terrified puppet. To this day, I can't watch Jurassic Park without getting ridiculously tense, and maybe hiding behind my hands a little.

There's a ride in one of the parks in Orlando called DINOSAUR. Even the name is intense. When we took our family vacation to the parks a couple of Augusts ago, Pam decided I needed to ride this terrifying contraption. (Actually, I had been on the ride a few years earlier, when I was in Orlando for orchestra tour, and I loved it. My dinosaur fear must have been in regression in high school.) The picture that resulted from the ride was so hilarious, we had to buy it. I wish you could see it better, but here you have it.

Let's discuss it a bit, shall we?

First, let me tell you that the picture is taken when some sort of raptor or something pops out of nowhere and roars. We think a better place to take it would be at the end of the ride, when a terrifying T-rex swoops down from above and threatens to eat everyone. Then everyone would have looks of terror and surprise. It's a little more hilarious this way, though, when I'm involved.

Note the kids in the back row, who are impressed, awed, and downright delighted.
The middle row has a small child who is hiding, but I think we'll give him a pass; he's young, after all.
The front row is Pam, me, and our dad. Pam and Dad look.... mildly interested. "Oh, look at that. A dinosaur. Huh." I am smiling, but also cowering. This was not a fake pose I thought would be funny; I didn't even know this is where the picture takes. I was actually trying to hide from the dinosaur, because dinosaurs, you see, are terrifying. (The ride is actually awesome, and Pam and I even went on it a second time. It's like scary movies: it made me tense, even as I enjoyed it.)

The moral of the story is, while I may occasionally enjoy them, I am irrationally afraid of dinosaurs. Now you know.

Irrational fear #16:

Getting rear-ended.

It's not such an irrational fear anymore, I guess, seeing as I did recently get rear-ended.

Oh, I didn't tell you about that? Right.

It was late at night, and I was driving home from my sister's house. The light I was driving toward turned yellow, and though I could have made it through, I decided to be responsible and stop. So I'm stopped at the light, there's no cars around, and I'm just waiting, when all of a sudden there's a noise and I'm jolted forward and there's a windshield in my rear-view mirror. I swore, put on my blinker, and pulled to the side of the side road.

This girl gets out of her car looking so terrified that, even though I was the one who got hit, the first thing I said was, "Are you alright?" She was young (I realize I'm young, too. I mean, she was clearly high school-ish age. I think.), and we determined that it was the first accident for either of us. We exchanged names, numbers, insurance information. We surveyed the cars and I was admittedly a little happy to note that hers appeared to have more damage than mine. Nicely done, car, way to be awesome. (My car still needs a name. Something fierce, because she has battle scars now. My dad suggested Elektra. Maude (Mod? Heh.) is also on the list. Any suggestions?)

I looked at my car again in the morning and saw that there was indeed some damage, but nothing really noticeable, and certainly nothing to file a claim over. So, incident forgotten, my car, her battle scars, and I have moved on.

Only now I'm paranoid. Even more so than I always sort of have been. I leave extra space between me and the car in front of me at lights, and I keep one eye in my rear-view mirror almost constantly. I yell at people who tailgate me on highways, and just am nervous in general.

I'm still a speeder, though. I never used to speed as much as I do lately, because I never used to have to drive during rush hour.

I think it's changed me, for the faster.

Dating is hard.

I've never done much of it, myself. Maybe that's why I find it so hard now. Or is it so hard because I've never really done it? Ah, paradox.

I've dated boys, kind of. Flirted, gone to dinner, called boys my "boyfriend." Or, sometimes, my "non-boyfriend." That one stuck around for a long time. But none of these things were ever real relationships, you know? There was always something off about them.

And then. Oooh, and then. When you find the man you plan on spending the rest of your life with, it's... I can't even tell you. It's the most incredible feeling.

You start planning things. Your wedding, your life. You see things unfolding before you in such a glorious way. You're secure. You know where you're going, where your life is going. You're happy. Happy.

But then. When, in the space of five minutes, your entire world gets turned upside down and ripped apart and the love of your life has broken you, it's... I can't even tell you. It's the most devastating thing.

You sit on your sister's couch and cry for weeks. You shower, occasionally, and then put your pajamas back on. You eat, when you feel you must. You stare, sometimes at the television, sometimes at nothing in particular, sometimes at words, empty words on a computer screen.

It changes you. So deeply, so completely.

You start to get over it. You put on real clothes and go outside. You go on a vacation (the wrong vacation, as it turns out - more on that later). You get cards and words of support and comfort. You put on a smile. You get a job, you move out of your high school bedroom (and into the basement, alas), and you just... try. You try to move on, to get on with things, to keep living.

I've done pretty well, I think. I love my job (most of the time), I've become even better friends with some fantastic people, I've realized how strong I can be, or apparently was all along. In some ways, I've really come into my own.

In a lot of ways, though, it's like I'm starting back from the beginning. I'm learning how to breathe, how to walk, how to move through life successfully.

Dating is not something I really excelled at in the first place, and now, now it terrifies me. Not that I've had a whole lot of opportunity to be actively afraid, until recently. I rebounded, I tried to put myself out there, kind of. With a safety net. A big huge safety net, and really no worries about my emotions at all. Things were going to happen, or they weren't, and either way, I was okay with it. Was I really just that laid-back about it, though, or had I sheltered myself? Have I built an insurmountable wall?

I met someone. Kind of. A passenger on my plane, who I had some really great conversation with. He waited for me to get off the plane at the end of the flight. We walked together. He asked for my number, and I gave it to him with a smile. As we walked away, he called out to me, "I promise I'll call!" And he did, within 12 hours. He left a very sweet message. I did not call him back. Yesterday, my phone rang. I picked it up to see who it was, and dropped it like a hot potato when I saw it was him.

Why am I so fucked up? Why can't I just take this opportunity and see what happens? Why can't I even let myself try to be happy?

I'm already finding things wrong with him, wrong with the situation, and I don't even know him. I don't even know him, it hasn't even started, and it's ruined in my head. I want to call him. Or, at the very least, I'm aware that I should want to call him. But the thought of picking up that phone... it sends me into a mild panic attack. So what do I do?

So far, nothing. I just do nothing. Because I'm paralyzed with fear, and doubt, and an inability to open myself to any possibility of good things because of the possibility of being hurt again. I cannot be hurt again. Not yet.

There are things that I want. Things I long for. But I think that I only let myself want things that, really, I know I can't have (or, deep down, don't really want, in the end). There's no fear of getting hurt that way.

I need some momentum. To break down these walls, that I've built around myself.

Irrational fear #382:

People throwing their cigarette butts out the car.

That's not the part that scares me. See, I'm convinced that, one of these times, I'm going to drive over their discarded embers, and my car is going to explode. Maybe my fuel tank is leaking, and a drop hits the still-lit pile of ashes, ignites, and follows the stream of fuel back up to my car. Maybe I'm just crazy.

I know it doesn't make any sense. That's why it's an irrational fear.

But still, I cringe every time I drive over those stupid little orange bouncing embers. Every time.

It's probably just a result of too many action movies.