Today, I was afraid. I was afraid of catastrophic things happening in my life. Today, I could see them taking shape. I could see myself not being up to the task of keeping them away. I could see part of me not wanting to be up to the task and in fact inviting that terrible fate as a way of telling myself I wasn’t afraid of it. But I was. And I am.

I’ve been burned and burdened and scared. I’ve been chased out of confidence and savvy and into a hole where I licked my wounds and hoped no one would find me. I’ve run away to a place of hopes and more hopes and truly desperate hopes. I’ve run away to see the look on my loved one’s faces as they too felt my fear and tried to make the best of it with me and to me. I’ve seen them suffer. I’ve seen them be heroic. And I’ve felt my heart not only sink but die. I’ve felt myself become paper, ash, empty and ghost-like. I’ve felt myself fade to fear and to despair. And there is no greater terror now for me now than that of possibly experiencing that again.

And yet the possibility of self-destruction looms, day-to-day, week-to-week. I see and feel it. It would seem I should control it, put it completely at bay and yet to do so feels not like something I’m even capable of doing. I’m like Charlie Brown knowing disaster looms if he kicks the football, but still trying it. I keep making the same mistake. Why?

Is it that I crave risk? I don’t think so. I don’t want to jump out of airplanes. I’ve never wanted to do anything even remotely like that. I know exactly what I want to do in life and it’s as sedentary as it gets!

In fact, I’ve known forever what I want out of life, but have still spent years fighting the world because it always seemed to make what I wanted difficult for me to attain, the main of it being my family’s issues seeming to always intrude on the peace and comfort I needed to concentrate on what I wanted to do. Peace here means several things but mostly it means not having the drama of other people’s problems, not having to jump because of someone else. All my life I’ve had to do that.

What does it all mean? It means I need the people in my life but I need them differently than I seem to get them. I need them to not need me so much or to not be so damned needy all the time in and of themselves.  I swear I would’ve killed to have a family of people who were happy just doing what they did and who could leave me alone to do what I did.

So I guess what I fear more than anything is myself. I function in the day-to-day world connected to people in a way I never like and never have liked. People need me which I hate. I don’t hate them, but I absolutely despise being needed. And I know why. My mother had emotional needs that she took from me when I was too young to deliver them, so I’m scarred. That is my baggage.

I will move forward with this knowledge and try to make the best of, trying to integrate what I want with what I have to do. Each step is a struggle, but I don’t see any other thing to do.