Blaura's Blog Fear Factor

When I was younger, my biggest fear was of aliens. My dad watched so many UFO investigations, abductee interviews, and alien dissections that I was convinced it was only a matter of time before they made an appearance at the foot of my bed in the blackest night, beamed me up to their spaceship, taped my eyelids open, and forced probes through my bellybutton while brainwashing me telipathically. I've learned to convince myself that they aren't interested in my particular earthling ways, and to my knowledge, I've never taken a tour of the solar system.

Fears change. Even though I can turn out the light without worrying ET will pay me a visit, I can't get to sleep without experiencing my much more mature fear of failure. We all have it. It's what motivates us to direct our paths to the same desk and chair at work, and what makes us work so hard on our relationships. It's a matter of pride--how we see ourselves and how we perceive others see us. Mostly, it's a healthy fear. And of course, sometimes it's not.

There are many things I could be afraid of failing at, and the scenarios run through my head all the time. They will always be there, but I feel like there must be peak times in your life when they creep up the most. Maybe I'm entertaining the idea that I'm going through some sort of quarter-life crisis.

Seriously, I feel like I'm above a puppet show with all sorts of strings in my hands. Which ones do I pull? Which ones will make the show move along smoother? Are they all connected to something, or are some of them just strings with nothing on the other end? I know which ones are which, for the most part. There's the wedding string that is getting heavier and heavier by the moment. There's the school string, which right now is pulling the line pretty taut. And then there's the mysterious string of the future, that dangles casually into the deepest pit. How far down does it go? Do all strings originate from this string? And, finally, how do I keep all the strings from knotting up.

Hmm, I smell a story here. I need to face my fears. Maybe I'll write a book about aliens descending on a play and abducting the audience members, changing their lives forever. Would you buy it?