Living With Fear

I think I have always been a fairly fearful person. In the past I have definitely avoided certain things because I was scared of them. I, in some ways, picked to major in science because I didn't have to take a speech class. I was terrified of speaking in front of people. I did end up having to give a big presentation in front of all of the other science majors. I hated it. It stressed me out the whole semester. I did the presentation and did terribly, I think I ended up with a C in that class, but I didn't care. It was done. I would never have to do that again.

I have since decided that I can't let fear control me. I can't live in constant fear of what might happen or I will never do anything. Bad things can and do happen, but we need to live life in spite of that fact. If I had let fear control me I wouldn't have done some amazing things. I wouldn't have flown to China by myself to visit friends. I wouldn't have gotten married. I wouldn't have had children.

In the past 4 1/2 months I have done so many things that were scary. At first everything was scary. If I had allowed fear to rule my life I would have never left the house. With Abby that was just not possible. She was not going to let me stay in the house all day every day so we went, first to story time at the library and then the park and then on field trips with "school". Soon it wasn't hard any more. Now we are out of the house all the time.

Everything is scary now. I am irrationally afraid of everything. I conquer fear every day when I let Abby do things alone. I can't be afraid that Abby is going to get kidnapped or hurt any time that she is out of my sight. I have to let her have some freedom to explore and be by herself. If I didn't I would never get to exercise or shower since she doesn't nap anymore.

Last week I drove with Dave to Minnesota. Parts of the drive were scary. I thought we were going to crash and die so many times. We weren't. Dave was driving carefully. I finally realized that I just needed to close my eyes and trust that we were going to be fine. I did and I calmed down. With my eyes closed I couldn't see how close the cars in front of us were. I couldn't see the unnecessary braking and the pouring rain.

Yesterday I did two scary things. Abby and I went to the pool and Grandma and my nephew met us there. He is old enough to go down the big slides. He went once with Grandma and then he convinced me to go down the tube slide with him. I don't know why I said I would. I really didn't want to. I knew it would be scary. But he wanted to so I did. We walked up the steps to the top of the slide. I really didn't want to go down. If I had been by myself I probably would have turned around and gone back down. I didn't. I got in the tube and the attendant pushed us down. It was terrifying. It went way too fast, but I made it. When we got off my hands were shaking and they didn't stop for a few minutes. I don't think I will be doing that again any time soon.

The second thing was that I, without too much hesitation, told a very pregnant woman about Nathaniel. We were sitting on the edge of the pool talking while our kids were playing. I don't think I freaked her out too much. She did ask what had happened and if it was possible to happen to her and if there were tests to take. I think it was a good conversation. It's probably a conversation that more people should have. It shouldn't be assumed that after a certain amount of time a live baby is a certainty. I should probably told her the importance of kick counting, but I didn't and then the conversation went somewhere else.