Fear: (Merriam Webster) To be afraid of something or someone.
(Urban Dictionary) Fuck. Everything. And. Run.
Everyone is scared of something. I don’t care how old, in shape, or heroic you are. There is something, or someone in this world that brings fear to your heart when you encounter it. Having a healthy fear of things is good. That healthy fear may be the one thing that keeps you out of trouble in certain situations. But allowing fear to control you and keep you from accomplishing your goals is not good. Sometimes the first step towards getting over our fears ends up being scarier than what we fear in the first place.
When I was a kid, I spent a lot to time at my grandparent’s house. My mom worked a lot and often traveled for her job. When she went out of town I got to spend the night at my grandparents. I was over there so much I even had my own room.
One night I was over at my grandparent’s house. I couldn’t have been any older than maybe six or seven. I was in the bed watching TV with my grandma. All of a sudden, I saw something move. Well, actually I saw something fly. I tried to ignore it because it happened so fast and it was dark. A few minutes later I see something flying around in the dark again. I totally lose my shit. PTSD kicked in and I completely started freaking out. A couple of years prior, I had an encounter with a bat at my mother’s house which sent me running out of the house and all the way down the street. That shit traumatized me so bad….. Anyway, when I saw this mysterious thing flying around my grandma’s house, I didn’t know what to do. So I did what every other freaked out first grader would do, I screamed at the top of my lungs and cried uncontrollably.
Of course my screaming could be heard a mile away and undoubtedly jolted my grandparents. Now that I was freaking out, my grandma started freaking out. When she realized that I was screaming because of the “flying thing” in my room, she immediately called my grandfather to, “come handle it”. I hid under the comforter as my grandpa came into my room. I peeked from under the comforter when he first came in so that I could keep an eye on the situation, you know, just in case it escalated. Once I heard my grandpa moving around and knocking stuff, over I went right back under that comforter. A few moments later the lights come on and I hear my grandpa say, “It’s just a moth. A BIG one.” Shiiiiiiiiiiiid. I DID NOT CARE. “Kill it! I don’t want it in here!”I replied. The next thing I knew, my grandpa left. I didn’t know what happened. I was still scared. I had no clue what was going on.
About five minutes later, my grandpa came back into my room. At this point the lights were still on, as I didn’t know if the moth had been captured or not. My grandpa walks up to me and holds out his hand, balled into a fist. I, again, immediately start screaming. I thought death was about to come pay me a visit himself. I started thrashing around and crying. All of this was going on around 8/9 o’clock at night while the neighbors are probably trying to get ready for bed. My grandpa was so confused. He just stood there until I calmed down. Then he opened his fist. I flinched. I thought a monster was about to jump out of his hand. Cherries. It was cherries. He was holding cherries. When I looked up at him he was eating cherries. He asked, “Do you want one?” Angrily I said no and he walked out of my room. I was so damn mad. Here my grandpa was, trying to cause me to have yet another heart attack when all he had in his hand were some damn cherries.
Let me continue my point about fear. When you build the courage to face your fears, the reward in the end is usually worth the stress and anxiety. I was scared to death of what was in my grandpa’s hand, but once I calmed down and faced the unknown head on, I realized that it wasn’t that bad. In life, even when you are scared out of your mind, you should suck it up confront that fear. It could all really ended up being a handful of cherries. I still don’t eat cherries to this day though.
tell 'em why you mad son 