Shame on me

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My Daily Dare has become the neglected stepchild.  How sad.  I set my goal to tackle one scary obstacle per day and after less than a handful, I stopped writing.  I never stopped facing my fears.  The irony, or side effect, of writing about my fears is that I quit being a person who is afraid to do stuff.  When I started the blog, I genuinely felt limited in my actions because fear would grip my psyche in its tenacious claws and hold me back.  After a few brave challenges, I realized that days had gone by without my pausing to allow fear to sink in.  I just took action without premeditation. 

What does this mean?  Am I now the superwoman I envisioned?  Kind of.

Being afraid of stuff is no longer my thing.  I should bottle this prescription and sell it to the masses.  If you publicly announce a weakness, write about it, then it quits being the big scary monster looming in your brain.  Cured!

We are building a house.  My character has always been defined by the fact that I am a person afraid of heights.  I am no longer that person.  I jump around on scaffolding, barely blink when climbing on the roof, and don’t break out in a sweat when I stand thirty feet in the air on decking with no railing.  It’s not a big deal anymore.

But it’s not just my fear of heights that has gone by the way of the dodo bird.  When my husband is gone, I can be alone at night without having all the lights glaring and my baseball bat in the bed beside me.  I now sleep instead (I admit, I do leave on a nightlight).

I killed a spider all by myself.  Just stomped its ass and didn’t even think before my shoe came down on its creepy little head.

I walk through our acreage in flip flops, totally unconcerned about snakes, mice, ticks, and other unknown, but still scary, flesh-eating vermin and reptiles.

And the kicker?  I forget to use hand-sanitizer after touching grocery carts, doorknobs, and ATM buttons.  That one is probably stupid because I’ve been sicker than a dog for the last ten days.  Good hygiene should never be confused with fear.

So, I have no idea what is going to become of this blog.  Maybe I should write about something else.  Or, maybe I’m too busy living my life to write about it.  I like that!

Image

Semantics

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Since starting MyDailyDare, friends and family have graciously offered ideas of challenges I can try to overcome.  Some friends (Susan) have understood that the dares need to come from me.  Sure, some fears are fairly universal, but my list needs to be of my personal bugaboos.

In listening to all the suggestions, it occurred to me that we are facing a semantic challenge.  What is fear?  Some dares are readily clear – climbing a rock wall makes me afraid.  So afraid becomes the first definition of fear.  But how about not eating a greasy cheeseburger when I’m trying to lose that last ten pounds?  Am I afraid of a cheeseburger?  Do I think it’s going to attack me with its artery-clogging fat and send me to an early grave?  No.  I am not afraid of a cheeseburger.

So that brings me to definition number two:  having the determination to achieve a preset goal.  Or, in other words, not being afraid to succeed.

But ultimately, I think for this blog, my definition of fear is not taking an action that I want to take.  If I want to run naked through downtown Kansas City, then not doing that would be defined as fear (or common sense).  The point is that, being of a sane and rational mind that would never choose to run naked anywhere, much less downtown Kansas City, then I have to assume that all actions not taken when I expressly want to take them, is fear.

Not all fears are going to be blog worthy.  Some are so pedestrian that they bore me to death.  Like last night, for instance.  I get hot flashes at night, really bad ones.  I turn the thermostat down to 64˚, but I’m still hot.  Unfortunately, I am covered head-to-toe with a sheet, blanket, and comforter because I’m afraid that spiders will crawl all over me – or the boogieman will get me – in either case, I am protected by my armor of blankets.  Last night, I didn’t do that.  I kicked off the covers and said, “to hell with it.”  I figured if the boogieman got me, then at least I wouldn’t be having hot flashes.  Anyway, I’m not going to spend an entire post writing about tackling that dare (only this paragraph).

So I may not post every single day; I want the dares to be organic, not contrived.  When they present themselves, then I will take them, but I’m not going to force it.  I think there’s more honesty that way.  In case you are interested in the ho hum dares, I have started a new section that simply lists the dare and the date it was tackled.  HoHumDares.

Between a Rock and a Hard Spot

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If I assigned hierarchy to my fears, heights would win by a landslide.  I wasn’t always afraid of heights.  When I was 19, I decided to go skydiving.  That’s another day, another blog, but the end result was that I knew what it felt like to fall out of the sky and I had no intention of doing that again.  To fly, I take Xanax – only one, and only ten a year.  But, I can’t take Xanax to climb a ladder or mountainside or enjoy the view from atop the Empire State Building.

I pretty much keep both feet firmly planted on terra firma.

So . . . today I decided I needed to tackle that fear by rock climbing.  We have a local club that boasts the largest climbing surface in the State.

The Rock.

I called my youngest daughter, Shauna, and asked her to come be my cheerleader and also document the event by taking photos.  She brought along her husband, Bryan.  I’m not sure Shauna was the best choice.  When we got there and I was looking up at the wall thinking how high and scary it was, she was saying, “It’s no big deal.”  I think she was trying to be strong for me, but I was in the mood for a little pity party.

Assessing the situation.

My belayer, the guy responsible for holding the rope so you don’t fall to the ground and break your neck, was so patient with me.  On my first attempt, I made it about half way up before I chickened out and climbed back down.  I did this several times, each attempt inching my way closer to the top.  On attempt number five, I was about three-quarters of the way up when I hit a “rock” that was loose!  That scared the bejeezus out of me.  Back down I went.  By this time I was shaking, tired, teary-eyed and determined to quit.

Shauna and Bryan encouraged me to try one more time.  They told me how close I was and that with another foot and a half I would reach the top and could ring the victory bell.  I asked what I was supposed to do about the loose rock and everyone said, “skip it!!!”  Oh yeah, I thought, you freaking go up there and SKIP an entire rock.  No problem.  It’s not like there were other rocks close enough to take its place.

But, I headed back up.  I got to within a couple of feet of the top and stopped.  I was frozen on the wall.  I really didn’t think I could do it.  I felt defeated and scared.  Voices drifted up to me and it finally registered that Shauna, Bryan, my belayer, and others were cheering me on.

Somehow I borrowed their strength and pulled myself up to the top.  I smacked the victory bell with attitude.

After I repelled down, everyone gathered around and congratulated me and asked me if I was happy that I conquered my fear.

I can honestly say, no.  I was simply scared to death.

Jaws

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I’ve been going to “the lake” since I was a little kid.  In Kansas City, “the lake” refers to the Lake of the Ozarks – a 57,000 acre lake located in central Missouri.  I spent 90% of my childhood in the water, swimming, boating, skiing.  I loved the water.  I hated the fish.  I always made my dad jump in first and scare away the fish, then I was fine.  I knew that just below the surface, catfish, crappie, blue gill, and bass were just waiting to rub against my bare legs.  I wasn’t afraid they were going to bite me, I just didn’t want their slimy, scaley bodies to rub against mine.

I still don’t.

My husband, Bill, and I were invited to spend the weekend with some friends at their lake house – a gorgeous home located in a nice quiet cove.  We spent Saturday riding around in the boat, looking at the beautiful houses, enjoying the 97 degree day, and most importantly, staying dry inside the boat.

This morning when I woke up, I thought I should probably blog about something that scares me and my husband suggested jumping in the water.  Oh my gosh, I immediately said NO because I was afraid of the fish.  Ut-oh.  I’ve only been blogging for a few days and I already hate this freaking thing.  I am afraid of fish.  I do not want to jump in the lake.  Bill said he’d jump in first and scare away the fish, then climb back out, grab the camera, and take a picture of me jumping in.  I was tempted, but that would have been cheating.

I prepared to jump in.  I kept counting to three.  Then I thought of how when you feed Koi, they all gather together in a mad frenzy, right below the surface, to get the food that you’re tossing at them.  I imagined all the fish in all 57,000 acres gathering at the end of the dock, waiting for me to jump in.  The longer I waited, the more fish would be there to rub their gross, disgusting, slimey bodies against me.

So I jumped.  No fish came near me (that I saw, the water was pretty murky).  My friends jumped in with me and we spent the next couple of hours floating around the water on our noodles (don’t ask).  It was fun.  I’m still afraid of fish, but at least I jumped.

I’m now more afraid of posting the photo of my fat ass.

The jump!

Edit:

I had to add this photo of the lake’s most famous catfish – he’s huge!  Would you swim with him???

The Wave

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This morning I woke up and panicked because I couldn’t think of a single thing that scares me.  I decided to walk Holly, my five-pound Pomapoo (that’s breeder-talk for mutt) and mull it over.  Walking in my neighborhood, a car drove by.  I started to raise my hand to wave when I was hit with a quick succession of negative thoughts.  What if that person doesn’t know me and thinks I’m stupid for waving at her? Or wonder if I do know that person and they don’t wave back?  Is my eyesight good enough to distinguish whom the person is and therefore enable me to make the important decision to wave or not to wave? Will I look like a fool if I wave and the person is actually not a neighbor, but someone just passing by?

Embarrassed, I started scratching my head as if that were my intent in the first place.

Ding, ding, ding.  My next realization was that I am afraid to wave at people driving by my house!  How ridiculous!  What’s the worst that could happen, people perceive me as friendly?  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  What a tragedy!

I thought about Eiler Larsen, the famous greeter from Laguna Beach, CA who would stand on the street corner and wave at all the cars and pedestrians.  Of course, everyone thought Eiler was eccentric, but he was also loved.  He once said, “They may think I’m crazy, but when a motorist comes to town, tired and weary of the traffic, and smiles when he leaves, does it matter what they think?” I want to be like Eiler.

This evening, I set out to attack my fear and wave at every single car that passed.  It was only embarrassing at first.  The cherry on top of the dare cupcake was that every single person waved back – and one of them was a sheriff!  For a second, I have to admit I thought someone called the cops on me, but he just waved and drove on.

There’s no reason to be afraid of being friendly.  It only makes people happy, including myself!

Here’s the proof!

So many choices, so little life

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Since I started the blog yesterday, I have spent all my free brain time thinking about all the fears I’m going to tackle.  Holy guacamole.  Forget that I said I was brave.  Clearly I am not because my mental list is long, long, long.  I’m not talking about little stuff either.  If I am to be an honest blogger, then I would have to admit to being afraid of most everything in one way or another. One particularly heavy fear (pardon the pun) is that for the last several weeks, I have been trying to lose those last ten pounds.  Losing them would mean I have hit my weight loss goal.  I think I’m afraid to succeed.  I don’t know why, but I have decided that today is going to be the day that I put that fear aside and I take the necessary steps to make it happen.  I won’t reach my goal today (unless I chop off a leg), but at least I am not going to deliberately sabotage my efforts by partaking in summertime traditions like eating barbecue and ice cream. I did that last night in preparation for today’s dare!

There are more fears I could tackle today and cross them off my list, but for today, I am going to concentrate on losing those last ten pounds.

First things first

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I think I’m brave.  I feel brave.  Except when I see a spider.  Or a snake.  Or when I want to wear a spaghetti strap tank top without a bra.  I may be confusing being brave with bravado.  Actions speak louder than words, right?  So to rectify this serious character flaw, I have decided to face my fears, one at a time, one day at a time.  Some will be small – like killing a spider – although in my mind, the “smallness” of this one is debatable – and some will be huge, like going to the top of a very high, very scary building and looking down.  But, each day I will tackle something that I was afraid to do only the day before.

I may poo my pants.