Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Stuff that Scares Me. Both Big and Little.

Autumn sky photo tonight
1. I did correct myself a couple of blogs back by saying ISIS did indeed scare me more than Ferguson after i said i was more scared of what was happening within our country among ourselves. Yes, ISIS does indeed scare me now. But i'm not going to change my life. hahaha... i'll still keep reading within the confines of my abode! They have to knock on my door to get me!

2. Actually, this might surprise some folks who know that i am liberal. I think i want a gun. I would learn how to use it. and when i say that i mean i would practice shooting for hours and hours and weeks and weeks so that i know what i'm doing. And hey, i have the time.

3. I have two brothers and right now both of them are unemployed. One builds houses and the federal funding for his contraction management job that was like Habitat for Humanity is done.

The other has always worked in middle management, by working his way up the top without a college degree and he was let go last April, one of the last to be let go in his company. Getting a similar job without a degree is not easy, especially not when you are past middle age. (No one in my family has a bachelors' college degree.... except my niece Kylee, who used to post here as Modern Hippie before she gave up all blogging.) So, I am afraid they won't get jobs.

4. I am afraid of stepping on slugs. I am afraid of slugs more than spiders.

5. I am afraid that my employer the Washington Education Association, state teachers' union won't be around for the length of my pension as it is now.

6. I've been trying to be more educated about retirement and investments and i keep hearing that we are headed for a new stock market crash. (Have y'all heard this too?)

7. I am afraid of having to give up running because i'm getting older. It's getting harder even as i am trying hard to stick with it.

8. I am afraid my dad is going to die before my mom.

9. I'm afraid my blog is going to die. Then i will be forced to go back and writing long hand in my journals. Which by the way i have to let louie know where those things are in the event of my death. Only right now i think they are in storage and i have no idea where that even is.

10. That something bad is going to happen to my family.

What are y'all afraid of? Big and little.

Notes to Self: 
Word Count: 449
Sunrise: 6:59 am
Sunset: 7:06 pm ( We have lost 24 minutes of daylight in one week.)
Temperature yesterday: 68/55
Books: Now on book 32. Finished reading Coming Clean and Son of a Gun. Both memoirs. Both really good reads.
What I'm procrastinating about: Getting stuff together for my financial planner meeting; organizing photos from my digital camera; cleaning my kitchen cupboards
Longest run this week: 45 minutes again. Still able to do that same route. Hurts, but not as much as before.


7 comments:

jojo cucina cucina said...

Oh yeH... And I am scared of taking all those tests linked on Facebook, even as I take them!

pearl said...

I'm afraid of letting people know what I fear (read Brave New World)

jojo cucina cucina said...

I have never read Brave New World. I know it was one of those required readings in school. Not sure how i got out of it. I have read very few classics.

Another fear....running out of books to read.
Going blind.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Gonna change this tomorrow i think, even though i already forgot the idea i had earlier for it.

jojo cucina cucina said...

ideas anyone?

Amanda said...

I wrote a long comment Monday but it got deleted. I hate that.

I'm a giant meatball of anxiety right now, so this is probably the worst time to ask about fears. My third trimester is two weeks away and the tension is ramping up.

Stuff That Scares Me:
• Giving birth. Duh, right? I'm terrified.

• Being a mother. There's so much pressure on women to be perfect, especially when they're mothers. Men aren't held to nearly as high of standards. There was a woman on the news over the weekend who made her sons lunches look like Pixar characters. I yelled "Fuck her!" at the tv and had a rage meltdown. Women are expected to be perfect and shit like that is just plain ridiculous.

• The baby's health. I'm so afraid something will go wrong and it will be my fault. I had food poisoning over the weekend and the guilt was horrible. "Why did I eat at that restaurant? Why wasn't I more careful? The waitress had a cold sore! What if it's lysteria and it kills the baby!" It's so much pressure. The 'what-ifs' are excruciating. (I'm fine, by the way. The worry was so much worse than the food poisoning.)

• Postpartum depression. I don't want to be a basket case. I want to be perfect, Agh!

• Terminal fatness. I don't want to be a Walmart Whale toting around my baby. Of course, this ties into the whole perfectionist thing. We're all expected to look like models a month after giving birth now.

• Breastfeeding. Agh, the horror of yellow ooze coming out of my boobs. Can't handle the thought.

I'm thankful I have a very busy job and I'm not left with too much time to indulge my anxiety. I don't know how women without jobs gestate without popping a blood vessel. It's very strenuous stuff. There's so much to worry about.

I may talk about some of this on my blog, but then there would be comments telling me not to worry, and that would be annoying. I know people want to help, but telling someone not to worry is dismissive. This is totally appropriate shit to worry about. Everyone worries about this. They have to.

Did I break the swearing record for comments? I count three!

jojo cucina cucina said...

Amanda, everything you write here about impending motherhood is how i would feel too. I've never been as brave though to find out for sure. So it won't be me telling you not to worry about that stuff. I never quite trusted mothers who used to say they LOVED LOVED LOVED being pregnant and never doubted themselves. Disclaimer: None of my family members or friends made such positive comments.