F E A R
It consumes me.
I’m scared of everything. It controls every decision that I make. I wish there was some way to make it go away or some way to make it stop. I try to figure out where all of this fear came from and a lot of times I just chalk it up to left over PTSD from the fear I had after the night I watched james and aaron shoot my Dad. Somehow I have a hunch that that isn’t really what it is. I mean it very well could be, but how would I know? Maybe that’s part of it?
I remember being a little girl and getting nightmares whenever I would watch scary movies so my mom told me that I was officially not allowed to watch scary movies anymore after running into my parents room in the middle of the night one too many times. And, I can count on one hand how many scary movies I’ve seen since … grudgingly. That sounds pretty normal to me though. Everything I see or hear about just gives me one more thing to be scared of. I don’t watch the news at all because it legitimately just gives me something new to have anxiety over tomorrow. Watching the news to me is like having a very unhealthy breakfast every day. Which … I’m very accustomed to, (shout out to you ma for all the ice cream and left over Halloween candy for B-fast ;-) )
When I was pregnant I was scared that Victoria was going to die; then I was scared that she was going to be missing an arm. Now that she’s outside of my stomach I have a whole new slew of possible things to be scared of. I’m scared of the day I finally (if ever) find a husband and then have kids with him that she will feel left out or like she doesn’t have a whole family because Ray and I don’t live in the same house, married or have more kids together that she can relate to. I get scared on a daily basis of all of the thousands of ways that I could die and what would happen to her and not being able to be around long enough to be able to have her remember me telling her how much I love her and how she is EVERYTHING to me.
In all of this I think that my biggest fear of all is not being able to get rid of these fears before she knows what’s going on and then having her become a scared person too. She’s so perfect and vibrant and full of life. She is literally fearless. She has absolutely no concept of height or hot or falling or that some people aren’t good people. She will jump off the bed without a second thought. She says Hi to every single person she encounters. She is so willing to befriend anyone and let everyone in and she doesn’t care about what they look like or how they smell or how they’ve probably lived their lives. She is completely care free and just loves life and everything in it. I wish more than anything that I could be like her.
I just watched the movie “Precious.” I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that movie, but I sure as hell did NOT know what I was getting myself into. I thought it would just be a normal movie about a random girl from the ghetto getting saved by some amazing teacher, kind of like a not so 90’s “Dangerous Minds.” Definitely not! It just made me so angry and so scared and so many emotions ran through my body I can’t even think of a word to describe the way it made me feel. I literally had to get up about ¾ of the way through the movie to just go hold Victoria and tell her that I love her and will never let anyone hurt her. I think to myself all the time how much I’m scared to die because I want to be there for her, but if it came down to it I would die in a second just to take any pain from her.
I truly believe that all of this fear in my life could cause her pain eventually because It could make her a fearful person too, which is painful. It’s so hard for me because all I want to do is protect her from said pain. It’s such a double edged sword, being scared of things that could possibly hurt her and then my fear being what will eventually hurt her in a roundabout kind of way.
Sometimes I wonder if any other parents have these kinds of fears. I literally would give up anything and everything I could simply for her happiness. I love her so much it makes me cry right now. Since the day I found out I was pregnant, alone in the food maxx bathroom, my life changed forever. At that moment I don’t know how, but I just knew that my life was no longer mine. The rest of my life would be completely dedicated to this little being inside of my body and simply her existence was just absolutely amazing to me. I think I’m a pretty nice person, but let’s face it … I’m kind of selfish … OK I’m really selfish. The concept of living my life for another person in this way scared me. Now that she’s here, oh my gosh, there is nothing more exciting to me than to see her happy. Every laugh, every smile, every word, whether or not I understand it, they’re all the brightest part of my day. She has had such a limited experience with pain, physical, emotional or otherwise. I wish that I could just keep it that way for the rest of her life. It’s the saddest realization for me to know that I just won’t be able to.
So many parents say “She/He’s my best friend” about their children, I will never say that. I will always be her best friend, no strings attached. She will never have to feel the pressure of me needing her or needing her to be my friend. But, I will always be there for her without a second thought in my mind. No matter how much or how long I talk about the love I have for her, I will never be able to even break the surface of the love contained in my heart for that perfect little being.
I suppose that ultimately there really is no specific point to anything that I’m writing. Just that I … am a very fearful mom and I love my daughter more than I could ever explain. And you … get to read all of the random things I think about in the middle of the night.
;-) night!
PS: After re-reading this, I’ve decided that my fear comes from not having my dad here to tell me every day “Don’t sweat the small stuff, Buddie”.