Fear

The other day I was driving home from work and I took a slight detour through the old neighborhood I lived in until I was 10.  It's winter-ish so the lights are all up.  Whoever currently occupies my old house has put up blue icicle lights and a gaudy 8 foot tall privacy fence surrounding the back yard.  Similar changes and decorations mark the houses of my old friends, some of whom I stay in the loosest of contact with: we're facebook friends.  The kind of facebook friends who don't talk and would delete each other if not for memories filled with rich childhood nonsense.  But most have gone their own ways.

I took a right down the street where the creepy old man with the hearse lived.  I'm under the impression every neighborhood has that man/woman.  The one who rarely leaves their house, but everyone knows they're there.  The one with the jagged wrought iron fence, caving roof in need of repair, twisted trees that never get leaves, or in my case, a hearse that never moved.  The hearse is gone now and I'm sure the man is too.  I still remembered the chill of walking by that house when I was a kid though, with its blank windows and that dusty old body-carrier, wondering if that old man was watching me.

A creek (or a stream, or a very, very small river, depending on your perspective and height) ran behind one of the further streets of the neighborhood.  I don't remember which year she moved in, but I remember the crush I fell into.  Her name was Ericka (or Erica, or Erika.  I'm not sure anymore) and she lived on that road in an orangeish house with a white rock in the front yard.

It's hard to categorize a childhoood crush when you're an adult, because during that time there is no real sexual attraction - or at least I don't remember any.  This was before things like lust were developed in my young mind and body, and so the feeling was something different.  I wouldn't call it pure, but it certainly wasn't corrupted by anything to do with procreation. It was attraction for attraction's sake - for the person and the person alone without any qualities of a sexual nature being considered.  It's a powerful thing, in other words.

I remember she had an older sister and two parents.  Possibly a dog.  These details aren't as relevant though to the point I promise I'm getting to in all this.  One day Erika (we'll just go with that spelling) asked me to skip the bus with her.  This was 4th grade and I was a good kid.  Skipping the bus on purpose was just asking for trouble in my preformed brain, and I was against it.  But she persisted, day after day.  Until one day we were going to do it.  And I chickened out.  She was so frustrated she was almost in tears.  I can't remember if she skipped without me or begrudgingly joined me on the giant yellow child mover.

This is the problem; has been, is, and will be the bane of my personality.  I was so sure that something awful would happen if I missed the bus that I was to scared to try it and find out.  Even at the beckoned of a girl who I really liked, I refused.  Looking back, the school was all of a mile from my house and it would be been easy just to walk home like so many other kids.  Why would I not take that step and take a risk?  Why not chance to get in trouble and get messy?  What the fuck did I have to lose?

I've missed more opportunities than I can ever begin to remember because of that same petrifying fear.  I'll see girls, bar, supermarket, a party, and I'll think, I should go talk to her.  I should introduce myself, get to know her.  What's the worst that could possibly happen?  


But I don't.  I would sooner stick to myself, feeling the weight and pressure of a sea of awkward loneliness sinking over me with suffocating waves of self loathing than start up one small stupid conversation.  I don't know why I do it - and that's a complete lie.  I know exactly why I do it.  A lack of self confidence.  Fear of denial.  Fear of the CHANCE for denial.  You can't be denied if you don't put your neck out in the first place, so it's safer, albeit lonelier to just blend in to the wall and hope you are just noticed without putting anything forth.

And maybe that works for pretty girls or exceptionally attractive guys with a penchant for wall-flowering, but I am neither of those.  If my personality were to be categorized and utilized for a real-time strategy game, and the game was socializing, I am best used mid to end game.  Once there is a level of comfort, a vague understanding, I'm on my A game.  I can schmooze with the best of them at that point, rile a crowd with witty nothings all night long.  But getting to that point on my own with someone I've never met?  I freeze, back away, and blend into the corner before they're ever the wiser that I had been thinking of approaching them.

And it's all fear.  Fear motivated in the want to avoid finding out something about yourself.  Fear in an attempt to avoid feeling the pain of failure.

The same thing happens with my writing.  I don't start up again because of doubt and the knowledge that if I don't start, I can't fail because I haven't tried.

But I think that's worse than failing.  Shouldn't I rather try and fail than to have cowered myself into inaction?  Shouldn't I prove to myself that I can before assuming I cannot?  If my goal is to succeed, the question becomes whether or not attempting success is worth the chance of failure.  Is the juice worth the squeeze?

NEWS!!! (and Skyrim..)

So I lost.

I got to about 37,000 words for NaNoWriMo.  It was a fun stint of flagrant wordsmithing, but in the end I couldn't quite make the big 5-O.  No matter, for next year I will try again with vigor and hopefully I'll make the goal =)  Regardless of not winning, I'm very proud of myself for the word count I was putting down day after day. To me, that's the foundation of this whole thing if I'm going to be a real writer when I grow up.  So here's to you winners out there, and to future me.  May you all prosper in your verbiage and let your inner-editor take a holiday until you're ready to use him/her.

I've been pondering which writing project to pick back up now that NaNo's over, and I'm kind of torn.  I think I'll end up having a free-writing session to see which idea sinks into my head most and then run with it.  It's been amazing how many ideas for old stories have flitted into my head while I haven't really been able to work on them.  JJ, Tylan, Jessica, and Claus.  And Trent, why not throw you in the hat too?  You've been good, you can be up for consideration again.

Saturday I beat Minecraft.  It was pretty awesome.  The dragon egg is currently hidden in a discreet location in my palace gardens until we build a dungeon to hide it in.  Not much more to say about it.  Other than I'm glad The End is filled with Endermen instead of with Creepers.  That would have been awful.  Sooooo awful.

They're like an infestation.  Of creepiness.

Later that day I went to Volkswagen of America's 2011 Christmas party down in the Grand Ballroom of the Motor City Casino in Detroit.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  After the preliminaries (get a wristband - not that  classy, complementary coatcheck - classier) I took the escalator down and saw the glory of VW's wallet.  

Pyramids of hors d'oeuvres.  Giant salad bar.  Tables designated only for fine saute'ed mushrooms.  MUSHROOMS!  And five (FIVE) open bars stocked with top shelf alcohol.  Oh and the desserts.  Mmmm they looked good, but I wasn't that brave.  And a live band!  !!!!!!!!!!

So it was awesome, I enjoyed myself tremendously, did not regret cancelling my room (I would have slept alone anyways) and headed home to enjoy a few blinks of Skyrim before bed.

Oh yes.  Skyrim.  Dear sweet Norse wet dream.  It's just as enjoyable and addicting as I had hoped.  I've already killed two dragons, been assaulted by a group of angry black men for (almost) no good reason, been named Thane of Whiterun, bought a house, and looted over ten times my weight in burial offerings.  For 10 hours of total gameplay so far, I think I'm off to a good start.  I could whine about the mechanics being buggy (which they kind of are) but I'm trying to be positive and so far I'm riding a Skyrim high, baby!  Onward, to glory!