Fear the worst

This weeks topic is Fear and it is one that I have a huge amount of thoughts on in various different respects and I have been battling with time to try and sit down and write some of it but I have largely failed as it is now Wednesday afternoon and I am only just getting started.

I could easily write a whole post about fear as a kink and difference between bad fear and good fear and how one can be a turn on and other most definitely can not. In fact maybe the good fear is not really true fear for me but more apprehension mixed with a nervous anticipation.

I could have written a whole post about how fear has held me back from doing things. How I am often scared that someone will one day call me out as a fake writer and blogger. Yes the imposter syndrome lurks here. I have a few ideas for anthologies I would love to put together but I continually talk myself out of pitching them to someone because, well, I am scared they will say no but maybe even more scared they might say yes and then I will do a shitty job and be exposed as a fraud. Let’s not even begin to start talking about my issues around writing a longer story. I know I need to just start writing it but unlike a blog posts which literally tend to fall out of me, I can’t even get an opening line down. It’s not just fear but fear mingled with a massive dose of overthinking it.

I could write a whole post about my fears surrounding poly and monogamy and Michael’s jealousy and how I feel like a failure when it comes to helping him with it and how there are things I still want to do but know that to have them will cause him pain.

I could write a whole post about my fears for this world we live in. How Brexit scares the crap out of me. That a hard Brexit could mean Michael won’t get his medicine, that my Mum might not be able to get hers. That my kids will never experience the joys of freedom to movement in Europe and their life chances will be forever diminished by it and then there is climate change. I look outside my window. The sun is shining, I am sitting here in a short sleeve dress and we have turned the heating off. It is February! I fear that we might have left it too late to rescue this planet and that maybe Brexit and Trump are mere niggles compared to what is potentially round the corner.

But all these fears pale into insignificance against my one biggest horrific heart pounding fear and that is something happening to the people in my life; Michael particularly but my kids too. Unlike all the fears above which I could, and probably will at some point, write a whole post about this is one that I can’t touch at all because it is so frightening and that articulating it makes it bigger and worse and there is no fixing it. I can’t write this away, I can work through it and confront my fears and overcome them. There is no taking a leap of faith, submitting my work anyway, trying a new thing, taking a risk etc. The only thing I can do is sit quietly with them and learn to breath through the moments when they bubble up and know that none of us are guaranteed a tomorrow and so the most important thing we can do is embrace our today and tell the people who make those days better just how amazing they are because the only way to vanquish that fear is to live and love and cherish as much of this life as possible.