Fear

Fear, I have to say, is something that ran my life, forever. I am not trying to say I currently have no fear, but I continue to work on determining the difference between rational and irrational fear, which basically boils down to those things I can control versus things I have absolutely no control over. Fear is a powerful motivator and can be found today almost everywhere you look.

As a young child, I was incredibly fearful. I know I have talked about this again and again in my blog. I think the reason I am so fascinated by my own fear is that most of it is totally irrational. I have absolutely no control over those things I fear the most. I think a part of me is also curious where exactly all of this fear came from. I know that some psychologists say we are born as a blank slate and we learn all of our hopes, dreams and fears from our family and our environment. I personally find it hard to believe that this is the case. I feel like somehow I was ingrained with a huge fear of basically "something bad happening to me."

Sound the alarm.....

I have always had a deep appreciation for sleep, even when I feared it. Some may say I come from a long line of nappers. We are all quite good at taking naps. The ironic part is that for most of my childhood going to bed was the worst thing in the world. Being afraid of the dark and never quite understanding what "sleep" was, going to bed was a nightly battle that I feared. It was a battle I dealt with by reading all night, keeping the lights on and when over friends' houses, either staying up late watching "Amazing Discoveries" or when all else failed, call my parents at 3 a.m. to have them come pick me up. They were wonderful to let me continue to try to sleep over my friends' houses. Funniest part, I would just get home to  not sleep there either.

Coloring books, SpaghettiOs and The Goonies

Well, it looks like my path to finding my passion will continue to include random 5 a.m. bursts of energy with random rambling thoughts. I always hated the part of writing reports that consisted of outlining your thoughts and arguments. It always felt so unnatural to me. I know there is a very clear and real need and reason to utilize it, however, rambling works best for me to get my thoughts out, in the moment.

Luckily for me, the ability to wake-up nightly, at some point between 3:30 and 5:00 a.m., at least once, is pretty much a guarantee. I often wonder if there is a reason I wake up every night, at least once. I am sure there have been a few occasions when I successful slept through an entire evening, but I am pretty sure the word I should have used in these rare instances was "passed out." Don't get me wrong, I wasn't really a "passed out" kind of person. There is very little I don't "remember" from college, but lets say that even today 3-4 glasses of wine on any given evening can help me, but once again, only until that magic 5 o'clock hour.

As a child I had a real issue, an embarrassing issue that often made sleeping over challenging. Now, while I was and still am petrified of the dark, and while I may not have been 12 or 13 until I finally had successful runs of sleeping over friends houses, wetting the bed was another challenge I faced as a child. I honestly do not remember how old I was when I finally stopped, but I honestly think this is where my night-time wakes ups came from. I had a lot of challenges with sleep when I little. Dorothy's mantra was "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" Well, mine would have been "Earaches and bed wetting and the dark, oh my!"