O.K. So guess what I've been doing. Go
on. Take a minute. Guess.
Those of you who answered, “Sitting
thinking about all my fears” should... Wait. Seriously? Any of you
thought that? Why that's... not right. Really. Why on earth would you
think that?
Anyway, that's what I was doing. I was
thinking about the things that make me fearful. Why? Good question.
My answer: Who knows? I suppose the easy answer would be that it's
around Halloween, the spookiest, kookiest time of the year. Do I
strike you as a spooky, kooky kind of guy? Right.
Besides, I've never been a big fan of
Halloween. When I was a kid, growing up in Scotland, our teachers
always made us do some of kind of Halloween-themed craft project,
usually a lantern. It never mattered much what the theme was, mine
always turned into a horrible, terrifying lump of paper strips glued
together: “Now, Masterrrr Arrrnold. Do we rrrrreally think that
worrrrk is acceptable?” “No teacherrrr.” “Ah should think
not.” Arrggghhh. One year we were supposed to make a spider. Hope
was high for a while, but my spider ended up looking more like a
lantern than any of my lanterns ever did.
But about these fears. I don't know why
I started down that (dark and scary, for those of you who are
Halloween fans) path. True, fears pop up now and then, but it's
usually more of a Whack-a-mole situation: one pops up, you whack it
with the mallet, it disappears, then another pops up. But, in this
case, I was actually making a list.
Now, just by bringing such a thing up,
I realize some of you may have started doing the same thing. Sorry.
If you haven't, don't. Facing your fears and thinking about the fears
you don't want to face are far from the same thing. Think about
bunnies instead.
One revelation I did have, though, was
that the fears at this point in my life are considerably different
than what I would have listed even a couple of years ago. I mean, I'm
still afraid of snakes, and there is still no actual reason for that
fear, but I've had it for as long as I can remember. Adam and Eve,
maybe? Mind you, on two continents, I have probably seen a total of
five snakes in 65 years and each one was scurrying away from me as
fast as it could slither (eew).
And clowns. I'm still afraid of clowns.
I understand that a lot of clowns are involved in helping others, and
most certainly devote a lot of time and energy to entertaining
people. I do. I understand that. But, they still creep me out.
They're usually so big and energetic. Even so, if they kept their
distance, it might be okay. But they insist on getting into my
personal space and trying too hard to make me laugh. It's called
coulrophobia, by the way, the abnormal fear of clowns. Though
Dictionary.com says it looks like “the sort of thing idle
pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty
pants takes up thereafter.” Well, the smarty pants thing sounds
somewhat familiar.
The fears that I need to confront today
are deeper, more emotionally based.
I am afraid of losing any more loved
ones. I guess that's always been running as a background script, but
now it's very much to the forefront. Obviously, finding out how
quickly one can go from thinking you're healthy to having an
incurable cancer could do that to you. Linked with that, we had to
put our beloved cat Samantha to sleep about a month before I was
diagnosed with cancer. That was horrible. If you're a pet lover, you
know what I mean. If you aren't, I can't explain it to you. I have
actually shed far more tears over that loss than my own illness.
My reaction to this type of loss is,
“Fine. I'm just not going to love anyone or anything again!.” You
can probably see the obvious flaw in that plan, right? Even if you
don't love anyone or anything else, you're still stuck with the loved
ones you already have. Damn.
As bad as multiple myeloma may be, I
don't think it even makes my top 10 list of diseases I wouldn't ever
want to have. Number one, with a bullet as we used to say in the
radio biz, is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS, Lou Gehrig's
disease. As I'm sure you know, with ALS your body slowly deteriorates
while your mind remains strong and active. My big brain frustrates me
enough now. I can't imagine not having someway to periodically dump
some of the crap buildup. Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis,
muscular dystrophy, polio, and, I'm sure, countless others I've never
even heard of, would be higher on my list that multiple myeloma.
Sitting here, writing this, though, my
biggest fear is that my multiple myeloma becomes active again before
I'm ready. Yeah, I know, you're never ready, but, in some ways, you
can be.
That one is pretty situational, though.
I have my monthly clinic visit tomorrow, when they do the blood work
that will tell us how I'm doing. Initially, I thought that the cancer
becoming active again would be a constant fear, hanging over my head
like the proverbial Sword of Damocles (whoever he was). It isn't,
though. I don't actually think of it very often, but around my
checkups it does tend to make a cameo appearance. I'm actually
getting much better at letting things be that I have no control over,
though.
One positive in this fear list thing is
that I realized I no longer have inkafaceaphobia: the abnormal fear
of ink from a restaurant paper napkin coming off on your face and
having no one tell you about it. Look, we have to deal with our fears
where and when we can. Cut me some slack.
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere.”
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