Fearless– Nope

Fearless

Being fearless, without fear. It’s a myth, people. There is not a person on this planet that is without some kind of fear at some time in their life. Not happening.

Fear is instinctive. Fear is self-preservation. Fear is protective. Up to a point, fear is a good thing. At least in my opinion. It’s supposed to make you think before you do a stupid thing that might get you injured or worse, killed.

Sometimes that mechanism is over-ridden by alcohol. So around here, when you hear someone say “Here, hold mah beer and watch this!” You know someone has A) had too much to drink , which in turn has negated their fear mechanism and replaced it with their stupid mechanism and B) someone is about to do something that they normally wouldn’t do, and shouldn’t ever do. I’m  not usually around such individuals, but if I find myself in the vicinity, I remove myself or at the very least back up and out of the “idiot zone”.  The last few times this has happened has been when we were on our 4-wheelers out by the river. We don’t drink when we’re 4-wheeling but a lot of people do. Get on a heavy, relatively fast machine that can do just about anything and go just about anywhere, drink some beers and there’s your stupid. Which conjours up not only my disgust, but my fear because there are always a bunch of similars hanging around watching the spectacle. I don’t like seeing people get hurt, especially myself and with my luck, the moron’s freaking 4-wheeler would head right for me before I could move.

I don’t pretend to be fearless. Far from it. I don’t like spiders. I have a healthy respect for snakes, although I’m not particularly afraid of them. I used to have a boa constrictor for a pet. But snakes are silent and can startle me into a Def Con 9 defense mode that turns my legs into steel coils that rival any trampoline. And as I get older, I’m less & less likely to pick up ANY snake, even one I know is harmless.

This is not my snake. He is a beautiful example of a constrictor that had just shed his skin.

 

A gorgeous, vibrant pattern. Unfortunately I couldn’t capture the rainbow reflections on his scales. His head is at the water bowl at the top of the picture.

I have a never ending fear for my family’s well-being. I morbidly fear the loss of my son, who decided to take a bunch of pills one time a few years ago. That brought me to my knees and put a large crack in my soul’s foundation. I fear the loss of my husband who just turned 50. Which isn’t old, but it’s not getting any younger either. I just have to push the fear of those things back into their little dark closet and not let the door crack open.

Oddly, when I was told I had stage 4 Lymphoma last September, I really didn’t feel the fear that I thought I would if I found out I had cancer. I’ve always been the strong one. The one everyone leans on in tough times. Like when my mom and stepfather died within a year of one another. So I just naturally put on my armoured big girl panties and squared my shoulders for the future ahead of me. It was much easier for me to deal with to have the cancer than it would’ve been if my husband or son would’ve had it. I have some control over me, even if I didn’t have much over the cancer.

I think being fearless means more about controlling the fear rather than whether or not you actually have fear.