Day 2

Day 2: Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and describe how they became fears.

I'm calling into question the definition of 'legitimate'. Any fear I have is technically a legitimate fear, because it's apparently real enough for me to fear it. I think the very soul of this question is asking about a 'logical' fears, which makes more sense.

So I'm going to ignore what I just said and talk about my most illogical, but totally legitimate fears.

1) Every time I have to throw away trash in a public trash receptacle, such as a dumpster, I have to force myself to not just leave my trash laying next to it. I am wholly terrified that I'm going to open the lid and out jumps a ferocious rabid badger who's so pissed about being trapped in there he's going to rip out the eyes of whatever he sees first. Which is me.

This actually gets worse when we vacation in Canada, because they have grizzly bears there. Can you imagine how livid a grizzly bear would be after being trapped in a dumpster?

I can.

And I do. Every time I take out the trash.

This became a fear mostly because I have to take out the trash at night, and like most humans, I have pretty bad night vision that doesn't really adjust in the time it takes me to walk from the bright kitchen to the always-in-some-seedy-poorly-lit-corner dumpster.So I'm almost literally opening that dumpster blind. Plus, as a Boy Scout, I always heard that animals love eating trash, so it's not too much of a stretch to think of one falling in and getting trapped.

2) Getting my junk bitten by a spider while using the restroom at a campsite. There's no delicate way to put that. When I was at Scout camp (hmm, Scouts was bad for my emotional well-being I think), I remember my scoutmaster asking the collected group of 12-14 year olds who would be more likely to be bitten while using the bathroom while camping. We all said girls because girls have to sit every time they use the restroom. He laughed at us. He said the answer was boys, because our anatomy hangs down into the toilet, which is where the spider is more likely to be hidden. I'm pretty sure the conversation quickly turned to the types of spiders and the results of their bites. Black Widows and Brown Recluses in particular.

Now, for those of you who don't have an intimate knowledge of my bathroom habits, allow me to rectify that situation. I always sit. Partially because I like to read when I'm in the bathroom, and it's particularly difficult to pee standing up, read, and not get urine all over everything. Mostly, however, because I don't like cleaning up the results of peeing standing up. It makes toilet maintenance less involved, is what I'm saying.

Now for someone like me, who always uses the commode sitting down and has spider bait anatomy, this was a particularly chilling thing to hear. As a result, I try to avoid using campsite toilets by any means necessary. I will wait days to poo if I have to.

3) Doing nothing with my life. This one's a little more serious (not that those last two weren't serious, because I would almost rather die than have my junk bitten by a brown recluse), or at least a little more mature (haha, junk being bitten by spider. Mature, I am not). I look at some of the amazing accomplishments made by those around me. I've got a brother who's just got into his residency as an anesthesiologist. He's going to be a DOCTOR. I have a brother-in-law who's a lawyer, another brother-in-law who's getting a PhD in (oh crap, I hope this is right) Chemistry, my sisters are both far cleverer, creative, and harder working than I am, my Mom's ten times smarter than me, my wife's family are all crazy hardworking and dedicated, my best friend is one year from becoming a Psychologist, and I'm not even going to begin listing the incredible stuff Dad does. And I'm... well, a lot of the time it feels like I'm nowhere.

Don't get me wrong, it could be a lot worse. I could be getting attacked by a rabid badger covered in brown recluses while sitting on the toilet WITH NO BOOK TO READ. And I understand that I'm not an idiot surrounded by geniuses. But what if I don't get into medical school this year? And what if I don't get in next year? Or the year after that? At what point to I change my life plans? I took a grand total of 4 classes this entire year so that I could graduate, and worked at Taco Bell to fill time. I don't want my life to be full of Taco Bell. The food, or the labor. Ugh, particularly the food.

I guess I'm scared of accomplishing nothing, being no one, looking back at my life when I'm dying of some horrible rabies related dumpster incident and thinking that I got absolutely nothing of value done. I was the black mark on this generation of Beesleys.

I don't think that's likely. Things will probably work out, and I'll probably be happy and successful. But sometimes I wouldn't mind just leaving my trash next to the dumpster, because I really don't want to get mauled by Hoser, the angry Canadian grizzly.

915 words. Yay me!