Fear

Sitting before a blank screen staring at the insertion key… blinking over and over and over. Fingers hovering ever so slightly just above the keyboard. Every once in a while a finger will twitch and lower only to be pulled back into hovering position. So many thoughts running through my head and bouncing from internal barrier to barrier screaming to break through yet rolling through my body halting at the very tip of each finger as if I’ve just been thrown into busy traffic and have nowhere to go. Every part of me is urging myself to move but am faced with three times the power keeping me from moving. Fear, the most debilitating feeling one can hold. Fear of what? It’s different for everyone. For me, I may fear loss, letting go, being accepted or loved, etc… I hold onto this fear as if letting go were like letting go of life itself. I become tired of continually be what everyone wants and expects me to be. There are a select few in my life whom know who I really am and don’t care. Most hold onto this controlling image of whom they think they know I am often creating and feeding my own self-distorted reflection.  It has become tiresome to fulfill another’s desire to be THAT person they have created. I am going to offer up a tiny cliché (as much as I dislike them) and hand you my shoes. Take a walk and tell me what you see. We all make terrible choices in life. It takes a strong soul to rise above, learn and accept that we aren’t and never will be perfect. When it comes to family, I have given everything and received nothing in return but hatred and discontent. When it comes to marriage, I received a disintegrated self-image and degraded self-worth. When it comes to tragedy… well, I’ve experienced what most only see on television. When it comes to love, I have been left alone. This past week has been the most horrifying time in my life. To lay on a table not even two years after losing a sibling to cancer and knowing your you will soon lose your dad to cancer as well, and see the confirmation with your own eyes steals the air from your lungs. To sit through these tests and appointments alone is something I wish upon nobody. Sitting and waiting to hear the news is the worst wait of your life. Not knowing what this monster is that is growing inside you is terrifying and crippling. Loved ones I have confided in tell me it’s nothing “you are going to be fine”. As much as I want to believe them and hear the words they are telling me I only worry more. To hear your doctor tell you there is a tumor inside you is deafening. You hear nothing else beyond that point. I sat by my sister’s bedside as she fought for her very last breath holding her hand. Everyone is always telling me they can’t believe how strong of a woman I am. I have been but it is strength by choice. Fear has taken over and strength is no longer a choice. To love someone with all your being and not have the ability to reach out and grab them is heart wrenching. This fuels my fear. To feel as though you are losing someone you never had is so unbearably sickening. It sucks the life from me; what life I have left. To hold fear of the unknown variable and not hold the choice or ability to bury my face in their chest and shed my pain with tears is like murder. Each day my soul disappears a little more for the fear I’ll never have what I never had. All I need is your love. All I want is your support. All I have is a fading distant memory. What I am left with is my fear…