Tag Archives: Fear

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Where Did They Go?

There comes a moment in everyone’s life where they hit a realization that they have dreaded. They deny it, but denial only gets you so far. You could try to fight it, but somehow it always wins. Or you could make a huge joke about it, and let everyone laugh with you.

The other day, I sat in front of a 5lb. container of pretzels I had recently opened. I looked at this container in horror as I saw that it was almost empty. I shrugged off my feelings of “holy cow, where did they go?”, and rationalized that everyone else had also been eating them and it was a week or two ago since we bought them. That was the denial stage. I looked down at my growing stomach in sadness of what I had just done to myself and thought that maybe I should avoid the snack aisle just in case. I suppose you could call that the “fight it” phase.

Then, there was the realization that it’s just easier to laugh about it. Like when you open a large jar of 20 pickles and the next thing you know your husband is laughing because you just ate them all. Yes, this is where we all laugh. At first, I wanted to cry. I couldn’t help it; I just needed to eat them. You always get further laughing about it though, and I laughed that maybe the baby just really loves them. Ok, maybe this could be considered denial by passing blame off to a fetus that can’t defend itself.

I’ve said it before; you never truly understand the feeling of “feeling fat” until you are either pregnant or morbidly obese. When I get back my skinny but to pre-baby size, I vow never to utter the words “I feel fat” ever again. Yes, I will work out every little hour of the day I can because I will get back to it. Until then, I will eat all the jars of pickles and pretzels I want. And I will enjoy every laugh second of it, because I’m pregnant and I can.

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A Day of Ups and Downs

On Friday, I woke up nervous to go to the doctors. At the last visit, she was hopeful to hear a heartbeat of the little Ginger Asian, but assured us that it was nothing but her trying to get a head start and it was too early for it anyways. Naturally, anyone would be nervous for the next appointment so my husband and I took a deep breath and went to the doctors assured that everything was going to go perfectly fine. To deny there was a pit in my stomach, I’d be lying. Luckily, the rational part of me overcame the hormonal part with my husband’s usual optimism.

My midwife is an incredibly nice and bubbly person, and greets us with a loud hello as she prepares my fat stomach for the “heartbeat” machine. Somehow naming it in my head made me feel a little more comfortable, until we heard silence when she searched for our little fetus. “At 13 weeks, we’d expect to hear something. Off to Ultrasound you go. I wouldn’t want you to wait a weekend to find out what’s wrong.”

I was shocked, completely scared and if my husband wasn’t there I probably would’ve snapped. He was there, walking me down assuring me that it was because the baby was a pain in the butt and everything was fine. “It has to be a girl, if it’s being this difficult”, he mused. I tried to laugh, but I was too scared to and fighting any normal person urge to start crying. We made it there and they didn’t make us wait long to be seen. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that grateful to someone in the medical field that wasn’t a friend.

To make this long-winded story short, she found the heartbeat very easily. It was also a good source of laughs for all of us because the little Ginger-Asian is apparently the little acrobat refusing to stay still for the technician. Leave it to me to have a baby that somersaults in the womb, and did I mention it waved to us? Yeah, that’s my future kid… the gymnastic ham. It all thankfully worked out in the end. And I wasn’t 13 weeks, I was just about 11, which explained everything. I bet it is a girl, because only a girl would give you that much of a heart attack and be that crazy.

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50,000 Words Rocked Me

I have an extreme dislike of failure. I admit that this often keeps me from doing things, like prevented me from writing this blog or any other venture I wanted to try. This also is what prevents me from sitting down and taking writing my stories to the level I should if I wanted to become a full-time writer.

So when I got an email from the NaNoWriMo about how yearly they do a “National Novel Writing Month”, I became excited about how this was going to get me to sit down and finally do it. The goal of 50,000 seemed difficult, but I wanted the challenge. It was exciting. After tossing the idea around a bit, I decided my first piece would be this crude comedy. My excitement increased when I had started to get into the story, I knew what I wanted and the process made me incredibly happy.

Then I hit a wall. I sat there a thousand words in, and I blanked out. I couldn’t tell what I wanted or where I was going with it. I thought I was going crazy, reciting ideas in my head while my dogs looked at me like I was going insane. I spun around in my chair, played bejeweled on my phone, and stared out my window just mentally exhausted. That was only after a thousand words, I knew I’d never make 50,000. I knew I wasn’t even going to finish a completed project to call “a book” and was ready to stop.

Giving up is hard for me to do, I’m not a quitter. As I explained my predicament to my husband, he reminded me of that. I was too stubborn to just give up. He’s right, that jerk is always right. He ushered me off to my desk and sat me down with my iPod and sent me off into that dark hole that would be where my brain had just vacated. I wrote and wrote and then I stopped. I had my story, it was complete. I was full of pride. My little novella is finished!

My pride quickly vanished when I saw the word count wasn’t even half of the required 50,000 for the challenge. I failed the challenge; I was angry and went back into my towel throwing. I could have fluffed it up and reached the word count of the challenge and been done with it. I wanted to, just so I didn’t have to admit any failure. Then I realized I couldn’t, I had far too much artistic integrity to fluff up my story for any reason. The story was complete, challenge failed or not. I had to suck it up and accept it.

At first, I became depressed by this. I wanted to be awesome and pass the challenge and complete it for no other reason than a feeling of self accomplishment. It didn’t take me long to realize I had gotten what I wanted anyways. I had finally finished something, and I felt proud of it and overwhelming felt that self accomplishment that I wanted. Now, I can sit and do the fun editing and revisions to publish my first novella. This has also given me the push to complete my short story anthology I’ve been banging my head against, while reminding me that giving up is just way too easy for me.

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Paranoia and You

I’ve always admitted how extremely eccentric I am. I actually cross from irrational to ridiculous very often. I lock the doors, and then recheck to make sure they’re locked. I take a walk or three around the house, making sure things are ok. I flinch at every nighttime noise I hear, and I make sure my watchdog Zoey is there to ward off anything. That’s as long as they don’t see her. There is nothing less intimidating than a  10 lb. Maltese.

I don’t become fully aware of my paranoia until I’m alone. While my husband was in Liverpool working, I went along with him. When he was out at work and I was left in the hotel by myself, I sat around and eyed the room. I knew exactly where there was something I could use to defend myself if I needed to. I focused on it enough that if I closed my eyes, I would be able to remember where everything I needed  without looking. I realized that I am extraordinarily paranoid and aware.

I’ll admit there’s something embarrassing about admitting this. I don’t care so much though; most people won’t know me well enough to judge and the ones who do won’t be shocked. That’s the beautiful thing about writing though: you can talk about whatever crosses your mind and you don’t have to care.

I also acknowledge that aside from how crazy this makes me look, I know that I have enough awareness of my surroundings to be as safe as possible. I’ll never allow myself to feel entirely safe. I don’t live in an area that’s even remotely dangerous, so the idea that I go through all these measures seems silly. Maybe it’s because of all the crime shows I watch, but I realize that no matter where you live you’re never really entirely safe. I’m not sure if that makes me overly paranoid or just ready. I’ll just say I’m “overly prepared”.

So bring on that zombie apocalypse. I’m ready for you… or a robber. But somehow a zombie apocalypse sounds much cooler.

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Fears

I’ve always wanted to write. I remember being in the 4th grade and winning a prize for writing. I needed to write a story, a page or two long on any topic as an assignment for class. I ended up with 10 pages and in the principal’s office. After being terrified, I remember she told me that I had a gift and gave me an award. In the 7th grade, we had to write poetry for a teacher of ours that was dying, to make a book for her to read while she was sick. The next year, I was one of the selected ones to read my poem at a dedication for the computer room being named in her honor. Since then, I do often get praises for my writing, but things are different now.

It’s easy to write freely and not worry when it is an assignment that needed to get done. Getting praised for doing something you’re supposed to do, but when you don’t have an aim, a teacher to turn your work into it becomes a want and not a need. What is the purpose of the writing? Who will ever read it? Could I make it something I could live off and follow a dream? Not likely, the odds are you’ll starve as any sort of artist instead of being successful.

That’s what makes writing scary now. I don’t have a purpose for sitting around typing out words that few people will even bother to read. Now you’re being judged on a larger scale than a teacher, or a reading you had to do as part of your writing assignment. You’re not just being judged on the story, you’re being judged as someone who decided to make an art as your dream goal instead of following a more accessible and profitable one.

I’ve been compiling short stories and poems for an anthology I don’t know if I’ll ever finish, not for a lack of trying but for a fear of rejection. It was easier back then; I was a stupid kid that did whatever I wanted. Now everything’s changed. It’s always a terrifying thing when you have to decide if you want to follow your dreams, because dreams end effortlessly and can ruin you. Well, maybe the idea would just ruin me.

It was to my surprise that I opened up my email to a website that offers a challenge to aspiring writers. Write a 50,000 page novel in a month’s time? I sat on the email for a week, maybe a month, deciding whether I should chance this. There’s no prize, there’s no one that will even read it. It gives a goal and your match the deadline. It’s almost like an assignment for school; would it really be so bad? When I had this fleeting sense of hope and strength, I signed up. The worst thing that could happen is I fail the goal, but at least I tried. I think I’d rather try than wonder why I didn’t. In fact, if I do succeed, I’m going to do the script challenge too.

(For anyone who cares or interested, the site is http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/dashboard.)