untitled.

I fear:

     I once believed fearing something was like being squeamish around bugs or refusing to kill a spider in the house and making someone else get it for you. But now I believe that that idea was very far from what it is to have a fear of something. I'm scared of spiders; I am the person who forces someone else to kill it for me and I am also the person who spends thirty minutes throwing a boot at the ceiling in a poor attempt to kill a spider only to knock it onto the floor just to refuse to sleep in said room for a week. I am scared of the dark; I can't sleep at night knowing that there aren't any lights on to keep me safe from whatever seems to lurk in the shadows and dark corners of my room that sets my nerves on edge. I am scared of locking myself out of vehicles or houses; I'm not quite ready to have to explain how I am still not yet responsible enough at 18 to not lock my keys into a vehicle or my own home. These things I am scared of, but these aren't fears.

     Fears are the things that leave you awake at night for hours without being able to breathe, like someone set a boulder on your chest while underwater and told you to breathe. I fear not being enough; the constant feeling of doing unsatisfactory jobs for others even if it's your best work, being told that you're never going to amount to anything, when you run yourself into the ground trying to keep up with the never ending list of things that needs to be taken care of but never seems to be done right or quick enough no matter what you have going on yourself, and that eventually you're going to be a nobody making no difference in the world. I fear not falling in love; I don't need movie cheesy or anything perfect, I want something that needs work, that is real, genuine, and something that will really be always and forever till death do us part, that doesn't break off like snowflake love nowadays when one thing goes wrong, and that isn't just a quick hit and go because no matter how hard I try I always get my emotions involved. I fear being a second option; I hate being a rebound, a pick me up "until she chooses me", a backup, or a back up to a back up because if I'm not your first choice then don't make me a choice at all. I fear being alone; the silence that sinks in when you've finally sat down on the sofa and where you can start to hear your own heart beat, the thoughts that start to run through your mind a million miles an hour, the demons and weight of your past that crawl out to greet you even when you've tried to tell yourself a million times over that you are more than your faults and sins, all the memories of things and people that you've tried to forget, and all the trauma that comes flooding in that threatens to ruin the sobriety streak and put you over the edge. I fear big crowds and parties; bodies too close when you're touched and all that floods your mind is a screen of fear making that momentary euphoria into a full scale anxiety attack that makes you forget how to breathe. I fear angering people; the way they can decide in the matter of seconds to reach out and bruise your delicate skin, how you learn to lie through clenched teeth, them screaming harsh words in your face that tear out your heart, the manipulation of anything you say to make them the victim of the event, walking on glass around them hoping that you don't take the wrong steps, left sobbing on the floor praying that you'll catch a break from all of the pain they've caused and for them to change even in the slightest to keep convincing yourself to stay, the continued effort to convince yourself with each small reason to stay because they say they love you even though every sign points to abuse. I fear small spaces; I stand at 5' but small rooms threaten to suffocate me with their low ceilings and walls that seem to close in around me with each passing minute, the way that there tends to only be one way to exit said small room and it's usually the same one that is so easily blocked off. I fear living; I don't want to mess up living life, I don't want to regret doing or not doing things, I don't want to go through life losing people because it hurts and I can count on two hands already the number of people I've already had to say goodbye to, I don't want to spend my life making major decisions that I'll regret and loopback and wonder what all I should've done differently. I fear dying; I don't want to end up alone, I don't want to realize I screwed up so much in my life that I don't live the rest of my eternity in Heaven, I don't want to die with regrets still in my heart and words on my tongue that are left unspoken, I don't want my thoughts to have gone to waste. I fear overthinking; the way I send myself into a messy spiral downward and the continuous toxic circle I put myself into trying to meet my expectations for myself, the way I start my own panic attacks because I start thinking "what if this" or "what if that", the way I completely bash my confidence and self esteem into little bitty pieces because I look at myself and kept help but think how would anyone want me when I don't even want myself? 

     Having a fear of something breaks me into a shattered snow globe; shattered and in pieces with my insides broken and the magic that makes other people smile spilled out. Completely drained of the beautiful things I once had. The things that made me whole and unbroken. Having those fears makes me hold my breath and makes me anxious to take my next step in any direction because at any given moment I could be stepping on someone's glass wrong. They make me try to anticipate all the millions of possible wrong outcomes that there could be in any one situation. They make me nervous when I introduce myself in a new environment. They make me insecure about every layer I keep on and even more so when I try to remove the layers. They make me self conscious about the way I talk, about my mix of accents from moving from place to place, and about how loud I talk because no one wants a girl who speaks too loud.  

 I fear.