What're You Afraid Of?

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I had a long conversation the other night with someone who is deathly afraid of overhead wires.

I'm not kidding.

This person has crying fits whenever she is forced to pass under, near or around overhead lines. Power lines, cable lines, anything hanging. The only way she can walk under them is to throw up an umbrella.

As she told the story, I sort of laughed uncomfortably. What I wanted to do was telling her that she's nucking futs.

Yet there are people afraid of heights, snakes, bugs, serial killers, being forced to leave their homes, dogs, cats, rats, and bats.

I can't say that I'm afraid of much. I remember a college buddy who was scared of thunderstorms. He got drunk one night and went out and stood in one, and he conquered the fear. He got wet as well.

When I was a kid I wasn't fond of heights, and there is every now and then when I'm driving across a bridge when I feel a shudder, but my job has cured me of most of the fears of falling.

The things that scare me are the realities of living life. Someone I love getting sick and maybe not getting better. That was always the greatest of all fears, and going through it hasn't stopped me from still being afraid. It's not like standing in the rain, after all.

Living life is sort of like trying to dodge the rain drops. There isn't one among us that can stand in a rainstorm and not get wet.

And I know that there are people out there who never truly conquer their fears. Too much anxiety, too few moments of peace.

What is the most irrational fear you've ever heard of?

The power lines one sort of takes the cake for me.

I suppose that everyone is scared at one time or another, sometime in their lives. But I think life sort of beats the fear out of you.

There comes a moment when you realize that what you are afraid of is something that you can't control no matter how hard you try.

And you're going to get wet eventually.

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