Fear Me

This was my rough week of the month at work. Rough in the way that this was the week that I had my once-a-month tasks as well as my regular work. None of the tasks are difficult or anything like that, but they can be time consuming. One in particular is extremely time consuming. It's also boring and monotonous. And before I go any further, I need to clarify that I don't mind boring and monotonous. I'm a Taurus and we're infamous for being our high toleration for boring and monotonous routines. So when I say I find something boring and monotonous, you know it has to be painful. I found my mind wandering a lot during this project this week. And I found myself taking a lot of my own inventory, something I think I should do more often, but don't. I don't because I don't always like what I find. This time was different, because not everything I found was bad. Sure, I went through everything I regret ever doing and everything I feel shame about, but I spent a lot of time thinking about hopes and goals and accomplishments, too. I usually don't do that. It's so easy for me to focus on the negative and I wish I could focus more on the positive and good in life.

Now, with that said, this post isn't about finding the happy. I realized I have a lot of things I'm afraid of. That's what this post is about. My fears, whether they're real, perceived or completely irrational.

• I'm deathly afraid that after all the hard work I've done, I'm going to gain back every single pound I lost and then some. I've watched so many people over the years drop a lot of weight only to rebound and put it all back on. I don't want to be that person, but I worry about it every time I eat something. I worry about it every time I step on the scale. I'm afraid that if I let my guard down for a second, it's going to be all over for me. I don't know if having this fear is necessarily a bad thing. It's kept me on track so far and hopefully it will continue to do so. I've managed to pick myself off and get right back to behaving after every misstep I've taken.
• I'm afraid of taking Ken for granted. He's my everything and I don't think I let him know that enough.
• I'm afraid I'm going to be killed in a car crash. I don't know when this started, but I think it's been within the last 15 years. I get little bouts of panic when I'm in the car, especially when I'm the passenger. I'm sure that person coming up to the intersection isn't going to stop at the red light. You know, stuff like that. Or the person driving the car I'm in doesn't see the person in front of them has their brakes on. I know it's all irrational and has everything to do with my control issues, but it doesn't make it any less scary to me.
• I'm afraid of the unknown. I don't like it. Just about anything can fall into this category. For instance, three years ago I switched jobs after fifteen years. I was nearly fetal when this was going on. The night before my first day I couldn't sleep. All during my orientation, I think I was tuned out because I needed to keep my mind on breathing. I was jury duty a few months back and again, I was out of my mind scared. Not only was it a new experience, but it also meant being surrounded by strangers and authority figures. New people scare me. It takes me longer to warm up to new people than it should. Clicking instantly with someone is a rare treat in life and I wish it could happen more. My comfort zone is very small and I keep trying different things in hopes of expanding it.
• I'm afraid of disappointing people. As self-involved and self-serving as I always claim I am, I tend to put others' needs before my own. Ken calls me out on this often. He knows it's hard for me, though, but I'm glad he calls me out on it.
• I'm afraid I'm going to explode one day. Not like "stick of dynamite, blood and guts all over the living room" explode, but "completely lose my shit" explode. I was never really taught how to deal with my emotions when I was growing up other than being told to shut up. I learned how to bury things, though. I'm an expert at that. But that shit always has a way of burrowing up from wherever it's buried. Back in the late 80s, I was dealing with a lot with my sexuality. Although I didn't really officially come out until the early 90s, I knew I was gay back then. I knew I was gay as a pre-teen, I just didn't know there was a name for it then. So I had years and years of that all buried down as far as I could hide it, but there was too much and it managed to come out a couple of times. Those incidents were notorious and were even dubbed with a name by the people who were forced to witness them. Ken and I don't fight, ever, except one time when I exploded and shot just about everything I had buried right at him. That was completely shitty and unfair of me to do. We worked things out and I've been trying to work on that ever since. It's extremely hard for me to not file things away. One of the purposes of this blog is for me to have an outlet for some of it. It does help, but for as much as I talk about here, there's so much more that gets shoved away. But I'm working on it.

This is not, by far, a complete list, but these are the main points. It feels good to pull them from my head and write them down. They seem so less extreme in this format than they do in my brain. That's the point of this exercise and I'm glad I did this.

What are you afraid of?