When I was a child fear took the shape of THE DARK or THE CLOSET or THE THING UNDER THE BED. It was a real fear—as real as anything we ever feel in our entire lives.
Are these groundless fears? One could say yes and one could say no, but they are there and I have never met a child free of fear. Some have more to fear than others, and to many the fear is of things that are very real and very close; they are things to which no child should ever have to be exposed.
As I grew older the fear began to change. The childish fears of things with EYES in the closet gave way to fear of shattering myself socially, the fear that I would not be smart enough, the fear that I would never fit in.
I was sure at this age that this feeling of fear was something that would mellow with time and age and would eventually become a comfortable old fear, as familiar to me as my own face. Then I would cease to fear it and begin to see it simply as was it was—either a reality to be accepted or an illusion to dismiss.
This is true to a certain degree.
However, fear changes shape as one grows out of adolescence. Suddenly, in those awkward years between the un-childhood of the teen years and the un-adulthood of the late teens and early twenties, things start to take shape in the world and these new visions can be vastly frightening. Siblings leave home—they get married or they leave on missions or they simply grow apart. Friends one were certain one would have forever slowly drift away, and the daily routine of life suddenly becomes both alien and precious, something to be held and examined and kept close until the very last breath.
As the vastness of the world begins to close in and things start to make sense again, things continue to shift out of balance. Fear of failing classes, fear of new room-mates, fear of having to choose between the people you love.
These too, however, are juvenile fears. It is in that first step of adulthood that both the terror of what is to come overwhelms and engulfs. Fear for oneself turns outward into fear for the people one loves—fear that the one time you fail to say goodbye is the one that matters, fear that you will fail those who have you alone to rely upon, fear that not enough care will be taken in the choices made by friend, love, sibling or child. There are fears of an empty bank account, fears of natural disaster, fears so horrible you cannot put a name to them, though there are people who live in them as a reality everyday.
The childish fear of the dark finds a new and terrible shape in the fear of people who live in the darkness, and a fear of the darkness that can take hold of the mind. It is a fear of those who would spread their own darkness to everyone they touch.
Comfortable Phobias. That is how I've heard some of these things described after they have been felt a certain amount of time. I can see how it would be so—I mean, one cannot allow oneself to fear all that is to be feared or else one would cease to be. There would be no joy, no hope—nothing for which one could ever get out of bed in the morning.
I suppose that I, standing as I am on the brink of true adulthood, feeling in a lot of ways as I do that I have only myself to rely on, am feeling these new fears as strongly as I ever will (outside, of course, the experience of a mother fearing for her children. I imagine that is an entirely new class of feeling). I imagine that they will fade in sharpness over time, because that is my only answer to these things.
It seems to me that people who find themselves in depression are the ones who can find no answer to these fears—they are the ones who cannot look them in the face, or having done so, deem themselves wholly unworthy of the task to meet them as one must.
Hope, I suppose, is the only answer to all this. Hope that the pain will dull over time, hope that things will not turn out as terrible as they seem--hope that the people who love you will continue to love you, no matter the terrible mistakes you may make.
How else am I ever to move forward?
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3 comments:
This really made me think a lot. You've made a bunch of really good points here, and boy do I know the feeling of being scared in the dark. And yeah, it grows from the skeletons in the dark when I was 5, to much scarier things now, that creep up on me sometimes when I'm almost asleep. And I wonder how some people continue to live after they've been through some of the things that happen to people in the world. Really, how do they?
And then I remember about the gospel, and thank goodness for that or else what would we have to hold on to? How could we ever afford to love our families as much as we do, if we thought at some point they would just be completely lost to us?
So thanks for the thinks. I love you. And I don't think you should feel you only have yourself to rely on. I mean besides the lord, I will always be here for you, I hope you know that! And I always figure if I need help I could always turn to you!! :)
Love you tons. Glad you're blogging.
Blessed are the folks who are born with a brain chem set-up that leans to joy and love. What an amazing gift that would be. I think the rest of us can mitigate those banks of fear by extra-centering. But even then, as you point out, the new set of fears are for those you've shifted your caring to.
It's called a veil of tears for a reason. First of all, it's a veil, which means that our eyes are muffled, and we can't see clearly where we are or where we're headed. The tears part is pretty clear.
We spend a lot of time in our lives self-medicating because of these things - with books and media, with work or play. With love, when we're at our best.
But man is that he might have joy - and really, that self-medication is legal and healthy when it's the result of service and healthy attachment.
You are loved. Very much loved. And that is what you have to remember ALL the time, little kitsune.
Mom
Good thing.
I used to fear what you feared. I didn't want to do things that you didn't.
I think that might have been hero-worship.
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