When I was a child, I had two recurring dreams.
When I was very young, I dreamed – vividly – of an alligator approaching my crib. I heard him slog up the stairs and through our apartment living room. With each step of his scaly feet I heard a squishing, sucking sound. As he approached my crib, he stuck his snout through the slats and announced, “I’m just going to take a little bite right out of your neck.”
Horrible.
As an older child, I dreamed of a super-sized Tin Man type figure who stomped into view from beyond the horizon across the street from my elementary school. As he approached and loomed larger, I froze in place, terrified. My Grandfather appeared from nowhere and pulled me into hiding behind some bushes, where he comforted me and we watched together. As the Tin Man stopped in front of the school, his funnel hat popped open. A collapsible sliding board was released from his head and everyone I knew and loved came sliding down to the ground in front of me.
So weird. And very vivid – I can even tell you the precise outfit I wore in that dream.
I have no idea what either dream meant. Likely nothing. I don’t know why I experienced them so many times over. In both cases, the end was a relief, and perhaps – at least now – a little hilarious. I think the most frightening part of those dreams was not knowing the source of the squishing sound and not knowing what was up with that huge Tin Man.
And that’s probably the greatest fear of all – the unknown. That’s really what we’re afraid of. We fear that which we do not know or cannot see. We fear not knowing what happens next. Not knowing the reasons behind the events of our lives. It’s really fear of not being in control. And that is hard. Very hard.
We humans like being in control and when we feel that we aren’t? It’s terrifying.
So what can we do about it?
Fear is a part of life. Some fears we carry through our lives; others we abandon. A little fear is healthy; it’s the kind of fear that keeps us cautious around things like fire, busy streets, and strangers. Maybe fear helps us make smart choices in these circumstances.
Sometimes we hang onto those childhood fears like fear of the dark or spiders. I still don’t like sleeping in complete darkness and I may or may not do a little leap into the bed at night – you know, just in case there’s something lurking underneath. Silly? Perhaps. I know there is no logical reason for these fears to linger, and yet they do.
As I’ve grown older and my life has changed, so have my fears. My fears now have much more to do with my family, with life and death. I fear things like car accidents when my loved ones are traveling. I am afraid of leaving this life too soon and not being here to see my daughter safely and solidly into adulthood. I am afraid of losing my own mother before I am prepared to face that day.
Maybe the real problem with fear is that we get caught up thinking much too hard about what danger might befall us, about what might be and not focusing enough on what is. Right now. I wonder sometimes if there a way we can try to embrace and even love our fears, to be OK with the unknown. Because my greatest fear? Is fear of missing what is right in front of me because I’m too stuck on what might be. I can close my eyes to the dark and the unknown, shut out what I do not want to think about, but in doing so I may miss out on something far less frightening, something far more beautiful. And I don’t want to miss a thing.
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This Post Originally Published on OTV Magazine and is republished on Medium.
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