What Scares Us

Many things are common fears among humans.  The dark, being alone, spiders, heights, enclosed places, all these are pretty common phobias.  We are also afraid of dying.  We don't think about it much, at least not usually when we are younger, but we don't really like the idea.  When we are young, it is inconceivable that anything could cause our existence to cease. We are vibrant, full of life, invincible.  Or so we believe.  The older we get, the more experiences we have of loss, or our own illness or injury, and Death becomes more real.  When we lose a loved one or even an acquaintance near our own age, no matter how old we are, Death becomes more real.

Death was a very real presence to all ages of people in the past.  Medicine was not so advanced, people were not so well-nourished, life was in general more dangerous, and more people died at younger ages.  Even in my generation, Death was a real presence during my late childhood and early adolescence.  There was a war going on in Viet Nam, and it consumed the lives of many men and some women the same age as my siblings.  Both my brothers had friends go off to serve.  Both knew some who did not come home.  They were both in engineering programs at UCLA, and because their grades were good enough, they had deferments.  (They were both also nearly blind without their glasses, as am I.  Only my sister has good distance vision.)  Every night on the news, we heard counts of wounded, dead, and missing.  Every night.  They don't do that with the wars today, but even though we have lost far too many, and had too many injured, the sheer number of injured and dead over the course of Viet Nam is staggering.  It still seems shocking to me that I thought of those counts as a normal part of a newscast when I was growing up.

There are a few things I fear.  I don't really fear confined spaces (like elevators), but I am very uncomfortable in them.  I have a lot of respect for fire, but I don't really fear it.  I have learned not to fear the dark, (unless I am alone on an unfamiliar street, or in a place like my old neighborhood in California.)  I dislike climbing on ladders because my uncle and my Pop both died after falling off ladders.   Right this minute, I am afraid to try to lie down and go to sleep.  I woke up choking last night, and for a few seconds, until I got whatever had gone the wrong way cleared, I was afraid I was going to die.  I could not get enough air in.  I am afraid it will happen again, and this time I won't be able to get the gunk out of my throat.  This has never happened before.

All day this has been perking along in the back of my mind.  I have distracted myself most of the day with things that needed doing and with reading and fooling around on the Internet, and haven't let it come to the forefront of my thoughts.  But now, bedtime looms, and I need my sleep because I have to work all day tomorrow.

My faith tells me I don't have to fear what will happen to me when I die, but I still don't want to go yet.  I have too many things undone.  There are too many messes in this house that I don't want other people to have to try and sort out.  Especially my husband.  I don't want to leave him. I really don't want to leave him all these things that need to be sorted and dealt with.  I told him we had better go together, because I don't want to go alone, or go on alone without him.  He just says we have to do what we have to do, and it isn't our decision anyway.  He's right.  (He's usually right, but don't tell him I said that. )
There are things I have not done, places I want to go that I have not gone, people I care about that I don't want to leave behind because they just might need me.  There are SO many more songs to sing, and poems to write, and books to read.  There are movies I want to see that are not out yet!  I want to see the rest of They Live Among Us!  But mostly, there are people I care for who may not know it, and I have to do a better job of letting them know.  Not telling them.  Showing them.  It isn't easy.  Actions speak louder than words because words of support are easy to offer.  Acts of support and concern are harder to accomplish.

I may have been flippant and frivolous today online, but it was only to cover the darker things clamoring around in my subconscious.  Thoughts of how much time I have wasted, how many I have hurt, those are the things that have truly been on my mind today.  Yet I still spent most of the day in avoidance behavior.  Of course, I had to wait on the plumber, and wait for him to finish his work before my time was really my own today.  Then, there was the generally run down feeling (now getting even worse) because I could not sleep for more than about an hour and a half last night.

Well, I can't avoid this particular fear much longer.  I shall set up the coffee pot so I can take a thermal carafe of good coffee to work tomorrow.  (I share, of course.)  I'll take the guaifenesin and the antihistamine and anti inflammatory,  brush my teeth, wash my face, etc.  Then I'll try to go to sleep.  Wish me luck.

Here is a picture of the new kitchen sink that I was waiting on the plumber to install, by the way.