Nothing To Fear But Love Itself

by Cookie

Fear.  What are you afraid of?  Bugs?  Death?  Heights?

There are a few things around that scare the shit out of me, that’s for sure.  Anything that has more than 4 legs and creeps or flies or lives in swarms.  Bugs and spiders are enough to send me over the deep end for sure.  The thought of something like that crawling on me and feasting on my warm flesh makes me want to die.

I also hate to be up high.  The only ways I would go up a mountain would be on my own two feet or on the back of a horse.  No car, no ski lift, no mechanical monster who is out to drop me over the edge and kill me.   Neither my feet or the horse are going to go and fall off the mountain.  Most of the time.

Flying? Oh my God. I have to be drunk first.

Failure.  The thought of not succeeding at something is terrifying.   The threat of being unable to accomplish a task makes me just about sick.  I am convinced that anything is possible if you try hard enough, so this would be like breaking a law of physics.

Oh.  And skin things.  Like moles.  And infections.  And overgrown zits.  I am absolutely certain that I will die from some strange skin lesion bursting and spreading a deadly infection throughout my body, or that all those moles I’ve had for 25 years are all cancerous.

Illogical?  Maybe.  But it seems real enough to me.

Does anybody watch Dr. Phil?  I fucking love that bald little bastard.  I think he says that fears or “odd” behaviours are ok as long as they don’t interfere with your daily life or change something about you fundamentally.  Then you should seek help.

Whoa. I’m fucked then.

Cause let me tell you what really scares me.  All quirky little phobias aside.

Once you have a child, your biggest, most important, only really present fear is that something could happen to your child. I see things on the news all the time about babies being killed in accidents.  Or young children that get sick and pass away.  I read about mothers having their babies taken from them.  And the thought of any of this crushes my heart.  The thought of anything coming between me and my child literally takes the breath out of my lungs.  Because that’s what she is now.  She is the air I breathe.

And that fear has changed me.  Or that love, I guess, depending on how you look at it.  Everything in life is seen with a fresh perspective.  I finally had to give in to the fact that not everything in life is completely black and white.

So has the fear changed me or fixed me, Dr. Phil?  Is my new found sensitivity and empathy a good thing or a bad thing?  Am I just really high on pregnancy hormones?  Is love really that powerful?

Life was way less complicated before I had feelings.  I used to be so predictable.

The one you should really be afraid of is the Destroyer.  She’s the one who did this to me after all.  Anyone who has the ‘nads to make me change is one tough little cookie.

And she’s all mine.