Drama Queen's Momma

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Okay, I'm a dork! My Thursday Thirteen is about my fears, so I was looking for a scary banner. When I saw this, it looked like two glowing eyes. After I loaded it onto my blog, I realized that it's a picture of outer space!

Before I get to my list, I just wanted to thank everyone for being so kind with your comments to my post yesterday. You never know what kind of comments a post will generate, and I'm so glad that everyone was supportive instead of tearing into me.

And now, without further ado, I present to you my Thursday Thirteen:

Thirteen Things that Scare Me
aka More of My Neuroses

1. Spiders--Before I had children, I was too scared to kill them at all. I learned to kill the small ones when my children were born because I was afraid the spider would crawl on them. The big ones? Not gonna happen. Last year I had a huge spider in my kitchen, so I trapped it under a bowl, put a pop bottle on top of the bowl, and then blocked off the kitchen so the bowl wouldn't get knocked over (and pulled a muscle climbing onto the counter!). The spider sat there for 2 or 3 hours until my friend's husband came over on his lunch hour and took it to the trash.

2. Mice--Where would I even begin to list the stories that have caused me to fear mice? How about when one ran out at me when I was a child and cleaning my closet? Or the time one ran across my leg? Oh, I know, when one ran through my hair while I was lying down. No, no, I've got it. When a pregnant one got in our house and had babies!!! (All but the last happened when I was a child. We weren't slobs or anything, we just lived next to a field, and I liked to hide food in my room so my brother wouldn't eat all of it. Not a good idea.)

3. Lice--OMG!! Karate Kid got lice when he was 2, and it quickly spread to Drama Queen (who was only 4mo at the time) and me! That was the same day the dryer broke. I spent hours and hours (and hours) trying to get rid of all the nits. For years I attacked my children whenever I saw them scratch their heads. Drama Queen even got to the point where she would scratch, hold her hand in the spot and say, "I'm itching, Mom!" so I could come check her.

4 Cancer--Of course this is a universal fear, but a partcularly bad one for me. Just the idea of having to battle cancer, the exhaustion of chemo, the hair loss, the nausea, and all of the many other facets of the disease that I don't even know about are more than I can even stand to think about. My biggest fear about cancer is that it will strike one of my children.

5. Screwing up my children. 'Nuff said.

6. Drowning--I can swim, so I'm not exactly sure why this is one of my biggest fears. I think it's the thought of knowing you are dying, of not being able to take a breath, and the terror of the whole situation. Whenever I see someone under water on TV or the movies (Fear Factor, Titanic, The Abyss, etc.) I can't even breathe correctly. I end up gasping for breath until the whole scene is over.

7. Heights--Once when I was in college, I went rapelling with some friends. I was only supposed to be going to watch, but I ended up participating because I didn't want them to think that I was a baby. I told the guys that I would cry, but I don't think they believed me. As soon as I lifted one foot off the ground, the tears started. Since I wasn't making any noise, we were about halfway up before they noticed the tears streaming down my face. Freaked them out. Once I was hooked into the rapelling line, I was absolutely fine. Going down was a blast. Going up, not so much.

8. Change-- I am a creature of habit. I do not like change at all. I crave consistency. It doesn't have to be big changes either. A doctor's appointment during the routine of my day can throw everything off and make me a nervous wreck.

9. Caves--Why would I ever choose to go into a dark hole filled with bats, bears, or something else I can't even imagine and have the possibility of it collapsing on me?

10. Flying--Sorry, Kailani. The only time I've flown was on a little, bitty private plane. It was so small that there weren't enough seats, and I had to sit in the co-pilot's chair. I was scared to death to move for fear I would hit an instrument or the steering wheel (what's it called in a plane?) and cause us to crash. I don't care what size the plane is; I don't want to be that high up in the air (see #7 above).

11. Traveling too far from home--that could be a challenge since I'm going on a cruise in January! For some reason, I only feel comfortable if I am close enough to home that I could get back quickly if needed.

12. Ski lifts--We went to Red River, NM, the summer I was 5. We were supposed to take the ski lift to the top of the mountain so we could see the view. We were running short on time, so my parents tried to scare me out of wanting to ride it by telling me about the big hole we had to go over (I'm sure it was not a hole so much as a huge depression). I've been scared of them ever since, although I have gotten on them. When my sister was 3mo, we were back in Red River, and my parents decided to ride the ski lift. I was too scared to go up but even more scared to stay by myself. I ended up riding with my dad and sister. I was so scared that she would wiggle too much and fall out of his arms. To make things worse, the wind was horrible. For some reason the lift stopped, the wind caught the wire, and we dropped. I thought we were going to die right then and there. I'm sure it didn't drop more than 3 or 4 feet, but it felt like 300.

13. Elevators--I panic when the doors close. If the elevator stops on more than one floor, I get sick (motion sickness). I've gotten a little better about riding them, but only when absolutely necessary. Like when I was 7 months pregnant and my doctor's office was on the 6th floor. I walked the stairs every time until then. I had to choose the lesser of two evils at that point.

And there you have it, friends. More reasons to make you wonder about my sanity.

Posted @ 9:55 AM ~ 5 comments