Fear
Molly Holzschlag’s recent post about fear struck me like a brick. In the aftermath of losing a father and watching a close friend lose her brother, I’ve been living pretty closely with fear over the past month. It sounds simple but fear is the biggest part of losing someone and the hardest emotion to reconcile. Fear of your own death, fear for the departed, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of being alone, and on and on.
I made myself a promise when my dad died: That I would find a way to do what I’ve been aching to do for my whole life. That I would find a path to telling stories. My fear, I tell myself, has held me back. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear that, at 33, it was too late for me. Fear that I would, in the end, end up like Salieri in Amadeus; Capable of recognizing greatness, but unable to find it for myself.
All of this fear is wrapped up together. Whether I chalk it up to relationships between fathers and sons or my own childhood brushes with death (real or imagined), fear is my constant companion and battling with it is so hard. I’m desperately looking for some real courage. Not a wicked grin and outer swagger, real courage to face up to my bedroom monsters.
So, at the risk of asking an unanswerable question, where do you find your courage? How do you arm yourself against self-doubt?
October 31st, 2005
October 31st, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Ugh–now you’ve hit me like a brick. I have the Salieri fear every day of my life. Oh, so much we should discuss over a drink (way too long for comment posting!), but here’s a quick answer–
When I’m struck with self-doubt, I ask myself two questions:
1. What’s the worst that could happen? Likely, the worst that could happen is not worse than having done nothing at all. If I succeed, great! If I fail, well, life will probably be the same and I won’t kick myself for not having tried.
2. So what can you do? This was my grandmother’s favorite expression. She said this about everything from the World War II to lumpy matzoh balls. If you ask yourself what you can do in the face of things you can’t control, you realize how important it is just to do the things you can and want to do. Whether you succeed or fail, life will go on and everything will continue, so why not go ahead?
While I’m fairly good at conquering self-doubt, I struggle with fear on an hourly basis. So, do as I say, not as I do!
October 31st, 2005 at 5:41 pm
I got a piece of perspective from an old boss over brunch one time that echoes through my head whenever I’m facing a fear. I was telling her about a boy I liked and all of the complications that might result in expressing my feelings. I rattled off a list of “what if”s. What if our mutual friend found out? What if he didn’t have the same feelings? What if the distance was too great? What if I alienated him by attempting something other than friendship? Her response: “Well, then you’ll probably just die.” I laughed my ass of then, and still do every time I remember it. Death is the worst that can happen, as you and I were both recently reminded, but, more than likely, it won’t be the result of mustering your courage and going for it. Unless, of course, “going for it” means deciding to become a snake handler. Because the fear of snakes IS rational.
November 5th, 2005 at 9:32 am
I didn’t know that you were experiencing fear. Interesting. I experienced all sorts of intense emotions that lead to the worst tension in the back of my head I have ever felt, and I actually felt sick to my stomach, a first for me. Of course, I have never seen anyone die of cancer. The odd thing is that everyone in my family (half of yours) just falls over dead, so I guess you could say that we have just missed out. I marvel that you were there for so many days and for so long. I do have to say here that I have also been battling this totally irrational fear of death - not that death is irrational at this point in life, but my fear might be. The weird thing is that on some level I have always felt really close to your dad, like the closeness couldn’t be erased even though we had completely gone separate ways and the fact that he seemed to have mythologized me. Still, I feel this closeness that scares me. Maybe you can’t really separate from someone you have known that early and long, even if you want to. I could make a really good case for mediation rather than lawyers at this point in my life. I keep going over what happened and I wish I could have found another way. It’s difficult when someone reworks the facts. Anyway, this is my fear: Opps - I can’t even write it, so I guess I will need to tell you over our dinner. What do you think about asking Linda? We have a plan to get together anyway and maybe she would like to come to dinner. Is all this appropriate for a blog? Linda would like this conversation.