Once, about twelve years ago, there was a six year old boy. He was missing what appeared to be at least half of his teeth and he was very proud of that fact, he gladly showed anyone who asked and everyone who didn't. He had big blue eyes and already by that time he realized that if he made his eyes well up and looked at his mom she would let him do a lot of things.
He didn't want to be afraid of anything and he would never admit to it, but it was obvious that the dog across the street was feared by the boy. Sometimes he would go up and try to pet the dog because he didn't want people to actually know that he was afraid. But every time he went up to the dog to pet it his hands would shake and his shoulders would tense up. The boys eyes would bulge as he admired the dogs huge tongue and sharp shark-like teeth. He didn't want to pet the dog but he did just to prove to everyone that he had no fear.
Me and that six year old boy are very similar believe it or not, in fact, that six year old boy was me. And I have not changed much. My biggest fear is still appearing to be afraid. I hide my fear to people. People ask me how my mom is doing, how my knee is doing and how I am doing. I want to tell them that I am afraid that she won't get better this time, that I'm afraid that I will always be conscience of my knee, and that it won't be strong enough to let me play soccer or volleyball again let alone strong enough to be able hold me up after standing for forty-five minutes. I want to tell people that I am afraid that I won't ever heal from the car accident, and that it will always be the scene of my dreams.
In ways though, I fear more what people will think of me, what people will say behind my back if I tell them that I am afraid of those things. I am afraid of the criticism, that people might not understand, that they might think that the accident was forever ago so I should just get over it.
I'm afraid that people might sympathize and feel sorry for me and change the way they see me. I'm afraid that they will let things slide with me, not be as hard on me as I want them to be because they feel bad for me.
I am afraid that people won't understand what I went through and that when I try to explain it to them that they will just look dazed and confused because they couldn't follow my thoughts or they couldn't understand what was happening to me.
Most of all though, I am afraid that people will, without even realizing it, make me ashamed of my fears.
So I'm on this team at my school that visits other schools and we do presentations for grade schoolers. Our theme for the Grade 7's is Fear and how to overcome or embrace your fears. And we did a presentation today and I read this today, so I thought it was kind of cool.
ReplyDeleteI think I might have the same fear as you - being afraid to show being afraid. Because there are a million things happening around me, and I don't know what to do with them. They're not identical to you - I've never been sporty and my mom has been consistent. But there are health scares and 50 percent chances of things and there are still old wounds from everything else. So I can see how you're scared, because I think we're all a little scared that someone will say that their fear is more legitimate and that their fear is a bigger deal and that our fears mean nothing.
I have all these things I need to spit out to people soon, because they're building up inside of me. It's just easier to say good and it's easier to say fine to things instead of laying every thought inside of you on someone. The words are going to explode and land on some innocent bystander.
...does any of that even make sense? :|
I read over that. It doesn't make sense. NBD.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, how is your mom doing? ...like, for real doing?