scared

Okay, I'll admit it... I have a lot of fears. I was going to say "irrational fears" but a lot of them are pretty justifiable. And even the ones that I would have considered irrational, like, oh, I don't know, fear of having a bird attack you- turns out to be a pretty rational fear! Stupid red-winged black birds!

So I have lots of fears. I know this about myself and I refuse to let it take over my life. Pretty much all of them are little fears that I never think about unless I am in that particular situation- not the sort that keep me up at night or anything. When the lady behind me on the el is hacking her lungs out I have a fear that I will get sick. When I am swimming in the ocean I am afraid that I will be bitten by some horrible creature. But it isn't like I worry about these things every day.

Most of my little fears don't affect my life in the slightest, to tell you the truth. Because I don't let them.

I do have one fear, though, that is affecting my life a bit. I have acrophobia. A fear of heights. It isn't extreme to the point where I can't ride elevators, go on roller coasters or go up in tall buildings. I do all those things no problem. I can stand on my dresser when I am trying to kill that bug on my ceiling. No problemo.

But ladders just kill me. As soon as I get about ten feet off the ground, I start freaking out. I try to rationalize it to myself. That's how I get over all my other fears... I just talk myself out of them. But that doesn't work with heights. For example, when my brother was painting the house last summer, and climbing up and down ladders and scrambling over scaffolding like a monkey, he needed my help setting up some of the scaffolding. All I had to do was climb up a ladder and lift this scaffolding piece over my head onto the brace that was attached to the ladder. Not a tough job but one that my brother couldn't do by himself.

I felt so ridiculous because as soon as I got up there my knees went totally weak and I felt like I was about to faint. I ended up successfully doing it but I came (<----->) this close to passing out!

I've been trying to learn why this happens. The only answer I have found is that there is a lack of blood flow to the brain when you get scared. Now normally I don't question the way my body works... but this seems like a really bad design flaw to me. I'm up on top of a ladder and get scared and my body's solution is to pass out?!?!

I tried to go out on the roof today to look at the lovely hole caused by the storms this weekend and I only lasted about twenty seconds before I raced back inside. I was actually proud of myself for lasting that long! I had it all planned out in my head... I would just crawl out the window onto the flat part of the roof, then I would scramble up the sloped part of the roof and perch on the peak and look down at the opposite side of the sloped roof where the hole was. No problem!

Um, okay, slight problem... mostly having to do with me being the biggest baby in the world! Oh well, it's always good to have something to work on, right? What fun would it be if I was perfect already?!