Blog Challenge-Day 4

The question is…What are you afraid of? 

I’ve been putting this one off because I don’t deal well with fear.  I wasn’t sure if I should share a physical fear (i.e. snakes, rats, mice) or if I should share an emotional fear.  I was tempted to cop out and just say that I’m afraid of anything scary and squirmy and leave it at that.  But I thought it would minimize the whole point of what this challenge is all about.

Fear.

I’ve been afraid of many things in my life, and I don’t know that I can honestly share them all.  One of my favorite lines in a song is “Have you ever looked fear in the face and said ‘I just don’t care’?”  I’ve faced a lot of my fears.  And then there are some that I know I will never face.  I will never jump out of an airplane.  I will never volunteer to lie in a plastic coffin and let someone pour scorpions and snakes all over me.  I will never eat a live insect or bite the head off of a mouse.

What I fear the most is….

being Lost.

Mentally, emotionally, creatively, morally.  And yet, it is something that we can’t often control. Sometimes someone loses it for you without your knowledge or  permission. And sometimes you just lose it for yourself without even realizing it until it’s gone.  I’ve had a lot of loss in my life, and the thing I fear the most is what I sometimes can’t control. 

I know that people will hurt me and I know that I will sometimes do things to hurt myself.  There have been moments when I don’t even recognize myself anymore and I have lost that important sense of who I am.  And that terrifies me in the sense of being someone’s most important person, whether it is as a mother, wife, friend, daughter.  I’ve lost myself so many times that I know how difficult it is to find your way again. 

I think you have to sink to the depths to know true fear.  And once you have it you have to make sure that it doesn’t cripple you, which can be a feat in and of itself.  But fear can’t be a factor in living life, especially a life worth living.

So I fight my demons every day and try to look fear in the face and say “I just don’t care.”