Fear

All posts tagged Fear

Just call us Sarek and Amanda.

Published May 3, 2021 by Malia

I’m going to be very frank with all of you. I’m not in a good headspace currently. Call it a pity party, call it being overwhelmed. I honestly don’t care what you call it. It’s probably all accurate.

Since the news regarding Tom has been made public, I’ve had a lot of people in my life make comments about how we’re being so strong, and how we have such a good attitude about all this. These are all incredibly kind things to say, and I know that they’re said with love. And to be fair, I am actually feeling fairly positive about the outcome of all this. That said…

I don’t think I’m strong. Currently, I’m exhausted, sad, and beat up. I feel like Tom and I are walking around with targets on us that the universe is taking full advantage of. Kind of like that old Far Side cartoon with the deer that had a target on it and another deer says, “Bummer of a birthmark.”

Even though my brain knows that there’s not much reason to be concerned about the surgery, and I know I can’t sway the outcome one way or another by how I feel, I’ve come to realize that I’m scared about it. I’ll be so glad when Tom is out of surgery and awake.

We have a joke in our house that Tom is a Vulcan and I’m a human (think Spock’s parents). He has very little emotion about anything, and it very rarely shows up. Whereas, I’m filled with all the emotions all the time.

I know they won’t officially diagnosed Tom with cancer until they have the kidney out and had a chance to do the lab work on the tumor. I know that as far as cancer goes, we’re not facing nearly as much scary stuff as so many do. Even so, it’s scary. Really scary.

Sorry I’m such a downer today. I promise to be a bit better tomorrow.

Sometimes I wrestle with the big questions.

Published March 23, 2021 by Malia

In 200 years, I will be very dead. No one will know who I was, and unless they stumble across the remains of this blog, they’ll know nothing about me. Should one of my nephews or niece have descendants, they may stumble across my name while doing a family history project for school. And that’s all I’ll be. A name.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Currently, I’m hyperaware of my mortality, and I feel like I’m running out of time. There’s not really any reason for it, beyond the fact that I get a little older everyday.

Why am I here? What is my purpose? Does my continued existence have any true bearing on the future? I’m not a smart, important person. I have no idea where I fit. I keep thinking about all those people over the centuries that lived for a brief window of time. Thanks to things like birth and death records from old churches, we at least know some of their names. But that’s about it.

The more I think about it, I’m not sure that I care if someone remembers my name. However, I want to do something with my life that will be lasting. Something that helps and soothes people, even after I’m long gone.

I don’t fear death. I’m not actively trying to rush it. That said, I do fear dying, having contributed nothing to the world.

It’s been a long weird decade

Published December 31, 2019 by Malia

12/31/09. If you had asked me what my life would look like ten years in the future, I would’ve given you an answer that bears little resemblance to what actually happened.

How has it turned out? Let me see…

-I’ve lived in two different states.

-I’ve worked in two different medical labs.

-I got married.

-I discovered that I’m actually a dog person (I still like cats, but dogs are my favorite).

-I’ve discovered a genuine love of crafting.

-I’ve had two surgeries.

-I’ve had miscarriages.

-I’ve lost the best grandparents in the world.

-I’ve experienced evolution of relationships with both family and friends.

-I’ve learned to think for myself.

-I’ve learned hard truths about myself.

-I’ve been given gifts I never expected that have quite literally changed my life and given me back hope that I lost long ago.

Life has mountains and valleys. The last decade was filled with mostly valley, and as much as it hurt, as much as it tried to destroy me, I’m ending the decade able to say, “I’m still here.” I can’t say I’m ending the decade a better person, but I’m definitely ending it more self-aware and in touch with the world around me.

So, what about the next ten years? Honestly, I don’t know what life will look like a decade from now. If God gives me another ten years (which I really pray He does), I know that I don’t want to waste them. I don’t want to reach 12/31/29 and find that I’ve accomplished nothing. I do know that for the first time in my life I have a dream of something that I want to do, that’s not just a pipe dream (I know I’m being a bit vague, and I intend to flesh this out in upcoming posts). I know that I have certain talents, and I’ve got a calling on my heart to use those talents, and to give. I know what gives me joy, and what my purpose is. Now the trick is to dive in and not give into my fear of failure.

I survived the decade.

I want to thrive in the next.

I Might Be A Terrible Person

Published September 24, 2014 by Malia

Tonight I was driving home from work, and had something happen that is really bothering me.

I was sitting in the left hand turn lane at a red light.  The intersection I was at is one that usually has heavier traffic, even after 10 pm when I’m usually headed home.  As I was sitting at the light, I became aware of someone knocking at my passenger side window.  When I looked over, there was middle-aged (looked to be in her mid-forties) woman standing there wanting me to roll down my window.

I’ll be honest, I got scared.  I was alone, it was late, and this woman had appeared out of nowhere.  Out of all the vehicles at the intersection, she had picked mine, which certainly couldn’t have been her first choice, especially since she had to pass several vehicles to get to mine.  Even weirder?   The intersection I was at is one that is right next to several restaurants (fast food and sit down), and gas stations; so it wasn’t like I was sitting out in the middle of nowhere leaving her with nowhere to go.  Plus, my stupid brain wasn’t helping.  All I could think about was the woman who got murdered last summer when she was on her way home from work (http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/Andrea-Krugers-Murder-Was-Quick-and-Random-222445351.html).

My paranoia got the best of me, and I ended up pulling away from her.  I saw her walking (not running, or even walking with much haste) towards the Village Inn on the corner.  I’m hoping that the lack of haste indicates she wasn’t  in trouble.

I’m hoping that she’s okay.  I honestly don’t know what I should have done.  I know plenty of people who wouldn’t have thought anything about rolling down the window, but I’m apparently not one of those people.  I apparently assume the worst about everyone, even if I have minimal reason to.  Did I do the right thing by putting my own safety ahead of someone else, or was I just operating out of fear?  (This is more a rhetorical question, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m incredibly frustrated by the fact that I may have been wrong).

Recovering Drama Queen

Published May 22, 2014 by Malia

Sometimes I think I should have entitled this blog, “Confessions of a Drama Queen in Remission.”  It’s true.  I don’t like acknowledging it, but I’m a drama queen in recovery.  Seriously, there should be a support group.

Me: Hi, my name is Malia, and I’m a drama queen.  It’s been three days since my last episode.

Readers: Hi, Malia.

Yeah, I try not to let that side of me out very often, but it happens.  And, unfortunately, it’s like a snowball, once it gets rolling, everything in my sphere of reality gets super dramatic.  I end up freaking out about everything.

To my horror and embarrassment, the drama queen side of me resurfaced over the last weekend.  It was awful.  I didn’t even realize I was being a drama queen until Tuesday.  I’m absolutely terrified of spiders, and last fall a coworker put a fake one on my computer keyboard not realizing this.  I screamed, and as soon as I realized what it was fake I felt humiliated.  That was six months ago.  Tuesday, it happened again, but this time the fake spider was hidden under my keyboard.  Again, I screamed, and then I ran to the bathroom because I was so angry and humiliated (and I honestly thought I was going to start crying, and didn’t want my co-workers to see that).  I know being scared of spiders is a stupid, irrational fear.  Doesn’t stop me from being scared of them.

Now, there were plenty of other things that happened that led up to the realization that I was being a drama queen.  The fake spider was just the breaking point.  The point where I realized how much of an idiot I was being.  So, now I’m trying to mentally prepare myself to be calm, no matter what (much easier said than done).

Throughout my week of being a drama queen, the boy kindly put up with me.  He never once made me feel worse about it, and he was overall just pretty wonderful.  And now having not seen him since Sunday I miss him a lot.  Being a girl totally sucks sometimes.  It’s not that I’m clingy, I just genuinely miss him.  Thank heavens this isn’t a long distance relationship.

It’s Not Worth More Than Life

Published April 3, 2014 by Malia

I have a lot of things I’m scared of.  Snakes, spiders, snakes, heights, snakes, anything in a scary movie, snakes…well, you get the idea.  However, the two all time scariest moments of my life actually took place while I was driving (and neither involved snakes).  One, of course, is when I went off the road in a blizzard.  Granted, I didn’t get scared until after being rescued, and I realized that I should have died.  The all time scariest moment came in December of 2009.

It was noon on Saturday, December 5th, 2009, I was with my parents, and I was driving on West Center (a main road here in Omaha).  Being the noon hour, traffic was heavy.  We were sitting in a long line of traffic waiting for the light at 120th & W. Center to change.  I remember looking up in my rear view mirror and seeing a car coming up behind me.  I could tell that it wasn’t slowing down, and even though my foot was already on the brake (because we were stopped), I put as much pressure into holding the brake down as I could.  Right before the car slammed into the back of my car, I saw that the driver was just chatting away on her cell phone, completely oblivious to the fact that she was about to cause an accident.  The impact came, our car was pushed up into the car in front of us, and then unexpectedly the car behind us hit us a second time.  It took a moment, but when no more impacts came, it was time to see what had happened.

Turns out, the woman who hit us wasn’t the only one on her phone not paying attention.  There was another woman in the car behind the woman who rear ended us, and she too was on her cell phone.  You read that right, both women were talking on their cell phones not paying a whit of attention to anything.  Not only that, but it ended up being a paramedic who witnessed what happened who called 9-1-1.  I didn’t have a phone at the time, and the gentleman who’s truck I got pushed into didn’t have one either.  Neither of the two women who caused the accident bothered to ever use their phones to call 9-1-1.

Miraculously, no one was killed, or injured; which considering the fact that both women were going at least 45 mph when they hit is pretty amazing.  (Although, the stress of the event triggered a nightmare medical situation with my mom over the next week, but that’s a story for another post.)

Ever since that nightmare day, I’ve been very anti using your cell phone to text or call while driving.  That accident should never have happened.  So, you can imagine the rage I felt yesterday when I got on Facebook, and saw one of my acquaintances had written that when a guy honked and shook his finger at her for texting and driving, she proceeded to flip him off and continue texting at the same time.  And to make it really great, she hash-tagged it “multitasking.”

Cue Seth and Amy, it’s time for “Really?”.  Really?  REALLY??????

Last time I checked driving is not the time to be “multitasking.”  A car is an incredibly dangerous weapon when used irresponsibly.  And yes, I consider texting and driving to be just as irresponsible as talking on the cell phone and driving.  If you don’t care about your own life, show respect and care for other people’s lives.  People in the cars around you are human beings.  Every single driver is someone’s daughter or son.  Every single passenger is someone’s daughter or son.  This isn’t “The Sims” where you can just recreate the character should Death come knocking.  There is no pause button, and the game doesn’t reset just because someone died.   Those other drivers don’t deserve to have their lives taken away or messed up badly because you don’t have the patience to wait until you’ve reached your destination to use your phone.

At the end of the day, life is too valuable to destroy so recklessly and irresponsibly.

A First Time For Everything

Published March 27, 2014 by Malia

Last Friday night I got to do something I’ve never done before.  I got to experience hand holding.  I’m sure that to most people this may not seem like a very big deal, but to me it was fantastic!  There’s something very sweet and special about being 29 and getting to experience this sort of stuff for the first time.  What others take for granted, is new and wonderful to me.

It’s definitely been a week of firsts.  First time holding hands, and first time having a root canal.

I ended up going to the dentist on Tuesday (after spending most of the night laying in bed with pain radiating up and down the side of my face), and it was determined that root canal was needed.  I know I mentioned that financially it wasn’t the best option for me, but I ended up deciding that I was just going to make it work, somehow.  I was so terrified going into it.  I totally trust my dentist, but I was genuinely scared of having a root canal.  I’ve always heard such awful stories, and I didn’t want to experience one of those.

Laying there in the chair, as the dentist worked, I found a spot on the ceiling and stared intently at it.  I began repeating Psalm 56:3 (“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”) and 2 Timothy 1:7 (“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”) over and over.  After several minutes, I was sure we were nearing the actual bad part of the root canal, and to my surprise, the hygienist looked at me and said, “He’s all done with the root canal.”  That’s right, I wasn’t even aware that what I was terrified of  had actually been completed.  Yay for Bible verses, awesome dentists, and excellent numbing!

Let It Go

Published March 4, 2014 by Malia

Last night I did something I haven’t done in almost a decade.  I sang, solo, in public.  I don’t know if I did well or really terrible.  I don’t exactly trust the opinions of drunk people.  I should mention that I wasn’t drunk.  All I drank last night was a soda, no alcohol in it.

And I just realized how off track I’m getting.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I was finding myself singing pretty much all the time.  I also mentioned that it had been a long time since that had happened.  Last night, I went to karaoke, and finally got my gumption up to go pick a song and put myself in the queue.  I picked Skyfall, because it’s one of my very favorite songs, and I decided that if I was going to fail, I was going to do it on a pretty epic scale.

When my turn came, I got the microphone, and as the first line passed my lips, something incredible happened.  The fear, the lack of confidence, the overwhelming insecurity that has hounded and haunted me for the last ten years vanished.  My voice was there, and it was strong (like I said, don’t know if it was good or not, but there was definitely some power there).  For the first time, in a really long time, I suddenly didn’t care what anyone thought of me.

Something inside me has started to break free, and it’s pretty fantastic.  I’m starting to unlock parts of me that I’ve kept locked up for years because of fear and hurt and fear of being hurt.  I struggle with the idea of being vulnerable, but I think it’s time I am.

Couldn’t stop it if I tried

Published January 2, 2014 by Malia

Well, for better or worse, 2014 is upon us.  2013 has come and gone and will never come this way again.  Now is about when some people are starting to regret the kisses at midnight and the hastily made resolutions.  Of course, I too am swept up in the enthusiasm of facing a new year.  Maybe it was the whole waking up to the first snow of the new year.  Everything looked clean and white and new and fresh and possible.  So, here’s a few goals I’ve got for myself as I start down the road of 2014…

-Lose the weight.  This one is starting to make me sound like a broken record.  I know it needs to be lost, and I need to keep going and being serious about it for more than a month.

-Eat less fast food.  Fast food has definitely become an escape method for me.  Let’s see, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, right?  Okay, well I’ve admitted it, now to put into practice avoiding it.

-Read more and revamp book blog.  The discovery of Skyrim and the availability of Facebook have definitely interfered with my reading habit.  I’m a free-ish, single woman.  I should be reading.

-Speaking of Facebook…Neil Gaiman beat me to the punch last night when he posted that he’s going to be on Facebook less, and going to be blogging more.  I’ve been wasting far too much time on Facebook, and it’s really been bothering me over the last year.  Up until this last month it hasn’t really bothered me enough to do something about it, but I’m now to the point that I’m not giving it up, but I’m going to try to be on it quite a bit less.

-Spend more time writing.  First off, I want to update this blog on a more regular basis (and the book blog), but I also want to get more serious about writing in general.  I’ve got several very good ideas, but I’ve been too scared to write them down, too scared of what others might think of me if they knew what I had written.

-Dealing with fear.  I tend to let fear control my life, which is apparently a bad thing.  Mostly, I fear what other people think of me and my decisions.  Then when I know someone’s disappointed I spend way too much time beating myself up over it.  I’m going to try very hard to stop living in fear and especially try to stop beating myself up constantly for every time I think I’ve screwed up somehow.

Happy 2014!  Make it a good one!