Are You Afraid of the Dark???

Do you remember watching Are You Afraid of the Dark when you were a kid? Us Akers, we were fans we even had the computer game that we spent an entire summer trying to beat. What does this have to do with anything? Well, todays self-disclosure question is about fear.

Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.

There are not many things I am afraid of. I am not afraid of the dark or heights, I am not even afraid of spiders or scorpions. I can go through hours of turbulence on a flight to Australia and not ever fear that the  airplane might fall out of the sky. So, to come up with three fears I have had to dig deep.

Fear #1 - Someone I love unexpectedly dying

I am not afraid of death.
I am, however, deathly afraid of the time when someone I love dies. I am afraid of this for very selfish reasons. I am afraid of this because if one of my parents, siblings, a future husband or child were to die, I cannot fathom how I would deal with it. I can easily see myself falling apart. This is a trial that I cannot prepare myself for.

I cannot imagine the pain I would feel and I don't know how I would chose to get through that pain. I have read enough books and seen enough movies with distraught characters to know there are many ways to deal with this type of death:

• I could get so depressed that I don't get out of bed. No one would be able to rely on me, I wouldn't be able to eat or drink and I would probably stink. People would wonder if I had died and I would assure them that I had in every way short of physically. 
• I could blame God. I would fill myself with so much hatred for Him and the world that I would throw away every standard I have ever had. I would become an alcoholic and I'd probably get some sort of STD because I would start sleeping around. 
• Another option would be to lay on the bathroom floor for days and then decide to bake (like Izzy after Denny died). I'd just bake hundreds and hundreds of muffins.The life insurance check would be left on the fridge and my friends would start to hate the smell of freshly baked goods. 

This may seem like a silly fear but I really don't want to ever be so depressed that I am suicidal or hate God while contracting an STD or spend my life as a mute and poor baker. 

Fear #2 - Mediocrity 

I am frequently racked with the unshakable worry of being mediocre or less than mediocre. In what? In LIFE! What if I never amount to anything? I have spent my life being "ok" or "good" at a lot of things but never "great" or "amazing" at anything. If I keep that up my life is going to go down a road I don't want to be on. 

• I could be a drop out. I would go home to Arizona and stop coming to school because I HATE it about this time of the semester. 
• I could end up with a mediocre job making less than 20 grand a year for the rest of my life. 
• I could be in debt the rest of my life. Dave Ramsey would never be proud of me because I'd never get out of my student loans, credit card debt and they might have to repo my car. 
• I could always be the girlfriend who reminded you that you want someone better. 
• I could go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. (Tangent for those who don't know what that is: In the Mormon/LDS church we believe that there are three levels of heaven. The first is the Celestial Kingdom where you'll live with God. Then it's the Terrestrial Kingdom for those who weren't bad but weren't good. Then there's the Telestial Kingdom for those who are bad.) I could not be good enough for the Celestial and not bad enough for Telestial, just mediocre Terrestrial... 

Fear #3 - Having a Child

There are so many things that can go terribly wrong in parenthood and I am sure I wouldn't be spared a single one. 

• There's a possibility of a miscarriage or still born child, see fear #1. 
• There's a possibility of having two or more at the same time. (Thanks mom). 
• There's a possibility I could kill it. Putting it in the crib the wrong way, feeding it the wrong thing, forgetting it in the car, taking it out in public too soon, not teaching it to look before it crosses the street... 
• There's a possibility I wouldn't teach it what it needs to be taught: education wise and spiritually. 
• There's a possibility it would hate me.
• There's a possibility I would screw it up psychologically. 
• There's a possibility I couldn't love it how a child needs to be loved. 
• There's a possibility somebody would hurt it. 
• I could fail. 

These aren't your average fears, but they are the fears that keep me up at night. Hope you like learning more about me...Hope you don't think I'm too weird! 

What are you afraid of?