Personal Paranoia

Here we are through January and I am still working on Sharpening My Saw.

For the mental and emotional, I would like to talk about some of my weird, paranoid fears.  It doesn't help that I know that it is weird.  It still scares me.

When my husband and I were dating he asked me what my biggest fear was.  I told him that I didn't want to tell him.  He pushed a little and I was kind of in love with him already so I told him.

I was afraid of having ugly children. 

I was mostly scared that I wouldn't know that they were ugly.  I have seen a few ugly babies.  We use those keywords like, "oh how sweet!" or "what a happy baby!".  So I was also worried no one would tell me that they were ugly.

Some months later I had my son.

He was pretty cute and others told me so.

Since then I have other strange fears.

• I can't eat at work potlucks.  Especially if someone else has already started eating.  Family ones where I have seen everyone's kitchens I am OK.
• I am afraid to step on manhole covers.  I worry that it will rust through and I will fall into the sewer. 
• Everytime I cross a bridge I worry about crashing into it and falling into the river and drowning because I can't swim.
• I am super nice to all wait staff and never send food back.  I am afraid someone will spit on it.
• If someone is late, I immediately jump to worst case scenario.  They aren't late, they've been kidnapped and just can't remember my number for the ransom call.
• Mice.
• Rats.
• Those giant rat like things in South America.
• I no longer really want to visit New York City because I heard they have more rats than people and there are like 8 million people there.
• Eww.  I just googled images for Subway Rats in NYC and I saw things that will give me nightmares.

So what does this have to do with Sharpening My Saw?  I think of the movie "Defending Your Life".  Albert Brooks dies and has to review his life.  The whole movie is about overcoming fears.  So I will try to overcome some of them.    I was telling my husband about a couple of these while we were running errands today.  He told me that if we are in the car together when it goes over the bridge he will save me. 

He said he would use a life guard technique he learned for people who are freaking out.  You grab their hair and drag them along so they can't hit you and drag you under.

Great.  Now I am afraid to cut my hair.