What do you fear?
Explain what you fear and how that has affected your life.
assignment 9
My biggest enemy is uncertainty. If anything causes me fear and worry and distress, it's the idea of being in an unfamiliar situation and not knowing how I can handle it.
I travel to the San Francisco Bay area every two months for work. In return, they allow me to spend the rest of my time telecommuting. As long as I handle my weekly assignments and stay in regular communication during reasonable business hours, I can work from wherever I want.
Every two months, though, I hop on a plane, fly to Oakland, and drive to the office.
I started driving before my 14th birthday. In my home state, driver's training students could drive during class before their 14th birthday. At 14, students could receive a driving permit that allowed them to drive with a parent or adult relative in the car. At 15, they could drive by themselves during daylight hours. I've spent several years as a driver and feel confident in my abilities. (Rain, snow, wind, and manual transmissions in hilly areas make me less confident, however.)
Driving in California is another matter.
Even from a practical perspective, flying in to a new airport, finding the rental car facility, and spending ninety minutes on the road in search of a building I'd never seen in a town I'd never visited is difficult. Worse, the directions I had were out of date. In the past seven or eight trips, I've found two or three different ways to reach the office, depending on construction, preference of highway, or missing an exit. California doesn't provide highway exit numbers, however, which would make my life much easier.
Every time I travel to California, I worry about the schedule. Will my plane land in time? Will the traffic over the San Rafael bridge slow to a crawl? Will I miss my outgoing flight? Will I be able to switch to the right highways in time?
I've never had any real mishaps, though I have had several minor setbacks. The first time through, I misread the sign and directions to head north and drove east through Oakland for several miles before finding a similar onramp. On another occasion, I absent-mindedly watched a limosine procession on I-880 North and missed the exit to reach I-101. I had to backtrack through downtown Berkeley.
So much of making that trip is outside of my control that there's little worrying and fearing can do for me. Yet that's precisely what bothers me. I don't like the idea that external circumstances can dictate what happens to me. I want to make a plan and execute it through to the end. That's comforting.
I also fear being lonely. That's much different from being alone. I consider my solitude important; I enjoy spending some time alone, whether reading or playing guitar.
Being lonely is different. Being lonely is thinking of a clever joke, starting to tell it, and having no one to hear it. Being lonely is cooking a nice meal, realizing that it doesn't matter if you set the table and eat there or plop down in front of the television, and spending the next several days eating the leftovers. Being lonely is looking through your list of friends and wondering who to call.
I feel that way sometimes and I do fear the idea of being lonely for the rest of my life.
Being lonely is different from being alone though. Just as I consider solitude very precious and valuable at times, I believe that I can feel alone even with other people. Being lonely at a party is a horrible feeling. I have a lot of sympathy for people who sit in the corners and watch all of the action while desperately wishing that they felt connected somehow.
The worst part about feeling lonely is that it tempts me to do things that distract me rather than make me feel better — for example, eating a bowl of candy instead of working out or staying home to watch nothing particular on TV instead of visiting friends who'd be happy to see me.
I fear the idea of that loneliness stretching out through the rest of my life. With my single friends all becoming part of partnerships, I worry that there's something wrong with me. Am I too picky? Am I blind? Am I unlovable? I fear this sometimes.
I fear becoming weak. I fear growing old only as far as it leads to weakness. My paternal grandfather had a hard life, working in construction for decades. After he retired in the '80s (with him in his early '60s, I believe), he slowed down. At first, he spent a lot of time puttering in his shop or tending to a large garden. For the past several years he has mostly just sat in his chair. He can barely move his fingers or bend his knees.
Something similar happened to my maternal grandmother. Though she was older than my paternal grandfather, she also just stopped living several years ago. She spent most of her time in her chair in her front room, watching TV, doing crossword puzzles, talking to friends, or napping. She did like to watch the birds out of her front window and also had friends from the trailer park visit frequently, but she could barely walk without assistance toward the end of her life.
I fear the same thing happening to me. I've only known being young and vibrant and energetic. I wake up sometimes with aches and pains and I don't have the resilience I did as a child. On the positive side, I no longer have growing pains and small nicks, bumps, and bruises from being a clumsy adolescent.
Still, I feel my body changing. One day will I no longer control it? Will I be its slave? Will it ignore my wishes and do what it wants — or worse, will it refuse to obey my commands? Will I retain my full mental capacities and struggle to communicate wise thoughts through a body that betrays me?
I also dislike spiders, but that's more of a revulsion. Who needs that many hairy and oddly-jointed legs?