Fear can confuse. It can blind. It can paralyze.
It's not good for your health; it's not good for your life. I have found, however, that a certain level of awareness of my specific fears is good. When I can name my fears - when I can call them out - I gain power over them, rather than the other way around. I wasted a lot of time as a kid being afraid of things I couldn't name. I wonder, sometimes, what I would have been capable of if I'd had the courage then to call them out.
AGES 4-7: Getting lost in the grocery store.
AGES 5-6: Accidentally falling into a pit full of quicksand. (Like you do).
AGES 5-8: Falling down the steep, wooded hill behind the playground because there's probably snakes down there.
AGES 5-11: Going into the basement by myself.
AGES 8-12: Drowning.
AGES 8-18: Getting a bad grade.
AGES 8-30. My mother getting cancer from cigarettes.
AGES 11-15: Saying/doing something stupid and embarrassing myself.
AGES 12-16: Someone seeing me slip a pad/tampon into my pocket before going to the bathroom.
AGES 21-30: The prospect of not making enough money to live on.
AGES: 22-30: The prospect of not feeling ultimately successful as an actor over time.
AGES 24-27: All the fears that go along with questioning one's faith and religion.
AGES 25-30: Wrinkles.
AGES: 25-30: Getting breast cancer.
AGES: 26-30: Simultaneously running out of gas in my car and charge on my cell phone while driving in an unfamiliar place.
AGES: 26-30: Disappointing the people who care about me the most.
AGES: 27-30: The prospect of feeling unaccomplished over time.
AGES 29-30: The prospect of Bad Credit.
AGES 29-30: That Mitsi (my car 14 year old car) will die before I can afford a new one.
AGE 30: That something amazing and wonderful, but terrifyingly life-changing, will happen.
Original illustration by Isabella Rotman
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