It's my role, it's my soul.

What are you afraid of?

Me, I'm afraid of the feeling of falling to my death in an elevator, the dark, and strangers taking and harming my children.  These are the exact reasons I can't watch Towering Inferno, Hellraiser, or The Minority Report.  (Okay, so there are a multitude of reasons for that last one, but stay with me.)

But what other fears plague you?  And I don't mean phobias.  And I don't mean the irrational bullshit apprehensions—like not holding your breath when you cross a bridge, or frogs.  (That last one's all me, I know.) 

Fear can be healthy, certainly.  Fear is at the heart of fight-or-flight: is this situation dangerous enough that it needs to be confronted or avoided?  Should I eat this morsel of unknown origin that might or might not kill me?  Should I cross this busy street, filled with fast-moving, honking cars?  Should I trust this stranger with candy?

There is a comfort in knowing what to expect, in being fairly certain of the outcome of your actions.  The world makes sense when you can kind of guess how it's going to go.  If I do this, then that is likely to happen, or not to happen. 

More often than not, I think it's the fear of the unknown that's really at the heart of our undoing.  It's the unidentified result and the anxiety of consequence that fill us with the most foreboding. 

Irrationally, anything and everything is possible—the consequences of acting or not acting are almost infinite in their possibilities.  It is the plausibility of the outcome that is most likely to determine if we do or don't... and whether or not we're willing to live with the potential consequences. 

For years, I lived in fear of what my life might or might not bring.  It was easy to stay in the comfort zone—of food or television or being fat.  Even if I didn't necessarily like how that felt, I was so accustomed to it that I could be okay in it.  The numbness of it all wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as the thought of actually changing it. 

But where was that getting me?  Where could I see my life going?  What were my plausibilities, if I continued on the same path I'd been on for-seeming-ever?

Disabling myself from moving forward felt horrible.  Being staid was wretched.  But I was safely tucked away in my fright until I ripped away a little part of the cocoon, just to see what I could see.  There was a life out there, outside of my apprehensions and my four suburban walls. 

In the end, the fear of not seeing what might happen, of not experiencing some unknown thing that may or may not even come to pass, was more powerful to me than the fear of being stuck in who and where I was.  I ran from plausibility toward possibility.  I stumbled and I tripped and I busted my ass, time and again, but then I picked the gravel from my bloody knees and got up and kept going.  I winced around the pain and reminded myself that I was more afraid of what would happen if I didn't keep moving than of what would happen if I stopped. 

And where I am a year and two years later is extraordinarily far from where I started.  I can barely even remember what the starting point looked like, let alone see it.  But what I can never, ever forget is the fear I felt in that place, the fear that kept me motionless and holding my breath, somehow waiting for my life to start. 

In Greek mythology, there were three Fates—Clotho, who spins the thread of life and the things that are upon her spindle; Lacheis, who measures the string of things that once were on her rod; and Atropos, who cuts the string of things that are yet to be with her shears.  It was said that Atropos, who was the shortest and the oldest of the three sisters, was the one who could strike the most fear in the hearts of men.  Her abhorred shears chose the mechanism of death and the end of the life cycle for each mortal, and even the gods themselves were bound by the decisions of the Fates. 

As much as I believe in Fate (and fate), it is the fear of not living every moment as fully as possible, as fully as plausible, that keeps me from stopping again and from settling back into the comfort of self-constraint.  I don't want to face Atropos, even in the mirror as myself, and stammer how I could have done it so much better if only.... 

I don't want to live my life if only....