Let's Look: the October edition

 

Welcome to my Wednesday bonus post! I read the topic of today's Let's Look link party and had to join in, because it's a fun one. I'm linking up with Shay and Erika for this one. I'll jump in!

This month's topic is about irrational fears. I have discovered that I have many! I'll start with the most recent one that reared its ugly head while I was in the mountains last week, and it's my very real and sometimes irrational fear of heights. We were on a trail to look at a pretty view, and pretty high up on a mountain, and I was terrified to be too near the side of the trail that dropped off. My niece witnessed this and I made a joke that day about how she was seeing all of my weird quirks. I don't have to be on a mountain to experience this fear that paralyzes me in the moment. I can be on a step ladder, the stairs going up to the attic, or standing on a chair in the kitchen. My heart always drops and I became frozen in fear! 

This was the point on the trail in Breckenridge where I almost lost my mind. I was frozen in fear every time someone walked by me and had to stop on the right side while also leaning to the right as they passed by! That was a huge drop off on the left side with no railing whatsoever. 

I am irrationally terrified of spiders. I say irrationally so, because most spiders are completely harmless. I hate all their legs, though, and I have trust issues from years of killing them when I was a young girl living in the country. They're genius and "play dead" when you kill them by curling up, only later to find out that they run away after you walk away. You can ask my mom this to verify, but when I was young, if there was a spider in my bathtub that had to be killed, I wouldn't bathe in that tub for a week or more! She was sweet to let me use hers in times like this. 

I also have an irrational fear of a spider being under the rim of the toilet seat and have seen them trying to climb out of toilet bowls with my own eyes. Sometimes if I'm in a woodsy area or at someone's house that lives in the country, I will flush the toilet before I sit down to use it myself. 

When I was still teaching the youth at church on Sundays, we were at a pool party one night when a boy captured a huge spider in a container and chased me around with it. He thought it was hilarious, but I was terrified. It's one of the few times I witnessed my son Graham act aggressively toward someone; I thought he was about to punch that kid. I was grateful he jumped in to intervene! He later told me he'd never heard me scream like I did when the boy was chasing me and knew I wasn't messing around.

I have a fear of someone chasing me up the stairs, and sometimes when Todd follows me too closely when we go up together, I completely freak out and dash up them as quickly as I can. I blame this on too many scary movies and books! I don't like scary movies anymore, but when I was a teenager, I loved them. I do still read scary books, and Todd just laughs at me only being able to read them while he's at home with me. 

I have a fear of flashing my headlights at someone telling them to turn theirs on, for the fear that they'll turn around and kill me. This was a thing when I was a teenager, supposedly as part of a gang initiation that was happening in Memphis. Knowing Memphis now as an adult, I do not doubt for one second that this actually happened. 

Oddly enough, I'm not really scared to drive in Memphis, even though you all hear horror stories about what takes place on our interstates. People have been known to shoot at other people driving while they are driving themselves! This is why you should never cut someone off on the interstate here, or gesture wildly with your hands; if you do that to the wrong person, you could become the next victim. I'm not kidding when I write this, unfortunately. I have a friend whose husband was shot on his way into work one Sunday and he very nearly died. This also means that on the interstate here, you need to keep up with the flow of traffic, which is why when I drive with someone riding with me, I tell them to buckle up since I'm about to majorly exceed the speed limit. Todd taught me this; he calls it driving defensively and I agree with his logic. He knows a lot about this, being on the sheriff's department. 

Have I made you laugh or sympathize with me yet? This was a fun one to write, though it did turn serious by the end. I'd love to hear an irrational (or rational) fear that you have! Thanks for reading along again today, friends. Love to all!