Fear Itself

I wish I was described as “fearless” and “brave.” Well, maybe I wish I just was fearless and brave and then it wouldn’t matter how I was described. I don’t know what it is--being the oldest, having an active imagination, a natural ego-centrism--but I feel like I have more fears than most people. Or maybe I’m just afraid I do. I want to live with steady-hands, throw-caution-to-the-wind bravado but that seems fraught with peril. I am frightened by closed-in spaces to the extent that I can’t wear turtlenecks. I am afraid that I’ll get hurt or fired and won’t be able to take care of the people I love. I am so afraid I will lose those people and never hear from them again that I won’t erase three year-old answering machine messages. Really. I am becoming a bit of a hoarder with things like fabric and paper and yarn because I’m afraid I will need them and not have them. Seriously. You’d think I grew up during the Depression, for heaven’s sake. These are all very real daily realities, but the big daddy scare of my life is an all-consuming fear of the dark. The fact that I am also an insomniac night owl who is afraid of the dark is just another one of life’s little ironies. In Barbara Shook Hazen’s The Knight Who Was Afraid Of The Dark, our hero overcomes terrible fear to win fair maiden. Which was a relief, because I was afraid he wouldn’t.

http://www.amazon.com/Knight-Afraid-Dark-Picture-Puffins/dp/014054545X

http://www.barbarashookhazen.com/