In light of my upcoming trip this Wednesday, today’s PROMPT is short and sweet (and selfish).
Can you tell me a story of a fear you’ve overcome? Fiction is of course, welcome. As are poems. Or one-liners. In fact, anything goes.
Anything.
Go!
(And thank you.)
I have a fear of death. Because my parents both died when I was young (19, 26) I have always carried with me this fear that I was going to die young, also. I lived most of those middle years with that fear. Now that my children are growing up, I have felt a great weight lifted off my heart. I no longer carry that fear with me. It has been replaced, surprisingly, by a great wonderful anticipation of what tomorrow might bring…
Vodka Mom – I love how your final sentence. We all need to approach each day with that attitude!
I’ll keep thinking about my conquered fear…
Ooh I like this one (as fiction). I might have to use this for a story.
I’m a totally neurotic head case so I’m not much help in the whole ‘conquered fear’ department. Sorry!
http://happyhippyraindancer.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/conquered-fear-writing-in-public/
How about fear of baby snot? When I was younger, I would dry heave at the mere sight of baby snot. Even if it was all the way across the grocery store. And as soon as any of my friends’ dear babies started to drip, I would hand them over like a hot potato. Now that I have my own child, I no longer fear the baby snot. I still think it’s disgusting, but the fear is no longer there. I’ve learned that it’s just like all the other slimy substances that come along with babies, and touching it did not send me to the ER with a mysterious illness.
Since childhood I’ve had an irrational fear of reading other people’s blogs – and even more so, leaving any sort of comment in response to a complete stranger’s post. But I am happy to report that I…well I am happy to report…um, uh, I am happy to…I am…AHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGG !#$%^&*
It wasn’t always that way; I don’t really know where or when it began, but one day I woke up totally and completely claustrophobic. Maybe it was because I had to have an MRI to look at a tumor on my leg, and for reasons unknown to the empathic world, I needed to be in that monstrous tube all the way up to my hairline. I still think they were sadists, and I’m not sure I could do that ever again, even if my life depended on it. Okay, so this is kind of a reverse to your theme – instead of overcoming a fear I discovered one. It still puzzles me to this day where it even came from.
I wrote about the first thing that popped into my mind.
http://www.doves2day.blogspot.com
It’s not really very scarey, but it’s one of the only things I’ve ever done where I had to really talk myself into doing it. I’ve had other scarey things happen, but I didn’t think about them at the time, I just acted – and got scared after it was all over.
I’ve been thinking about this today, and I have a few fears (involving my kids) that I can’t honestly say I’ve overcome, nor do I want to give a voice.
However, I thought of one, which Stu already touched upon.
I used to have a fear of commenting on blogs. I commented on Dooce once about 5 years ago, and three STRANGERS jumped on the comment. It really bothered me. I thought “what freaks?!” “Do these people have NOTHING better to do?!”
I’ve clearly overcome my fear… and my judgment. Forgive me blog commenters. I didn’t know.
For much of my life, I feared not being accepted. It was a fear based on abandonment experiences in childhood. It turned me into a codependent people pleaser.
I’m no longer that. I do like to give, and to serve. And I work in the healthcare industry. But I’m no longer codependent about it. I learned that I can’t please everyone, and that’s okay. Take me or leave me as I am.
Ferd, you really rock for writing that. That really expresses so much of what I think about myself and overcoming my own fears about not pleasing everybody. Thanks so much for going out on a limb with your entry!
A strangely haunting fear that I have is about not finishing a book. It is a sort of guilt and fear mixed together that causes me to keep the book and organize it on a shelf with other books I haven’t yet finished — and, as they add up, I have this fear that I will someday die without having finished them all. Weird, I know.
So, after having read and enjoyed many Jack Kerouac books, for example, I came across, yet again, that unfinished copy of “Big Sur” recently and I threw it away. I didn’t donate it to the Salvation Army. I didn’t put it up there on my “unfinished reading shelf.” I had the balls to just say: “You know what? This book sucks! I will NEVER have time set aside to waste on this particular book!” And I tossed it. And by ridding myself of it, I gained permission to actualize that I don’t have obsess my way to the end of something to know it’s not for me.
Now if I can just start learning how to walk out of movies, things will be even better! :)
— Wade
Here’s mine.
Late arrival from Cheri at Blog This Mom! just landed:
We Shall Not Overcome