I never imagined I would live to this age. I guess part of the blessings of youth is that young people don’t dwell on anything but the present. When’s the next party? the next test? When I used to dream about my future it was always about love. Being in love, finding someone to love, finding someone who would “get” me. I foolishly thought someday my prince would come and that I too would get to live a Disney heroine type of life. Yeah, right. Don’t get me wrong I love my hubby. He loves me but no matter how much I wish it; he is no Prince Charming and I, am no Cinderella. I have always been more of a Maleficent kind of gal. Troubled, misunderstood, longing for that one elusive thing I already have.

I have been at the same job for thirty years. WOW, right? No risk Trish that’s what they should call me. Fear sucks. I am afraid to do something else so I do nothing. I would love to write a book but lack of self belief keeps me from fulfilling a dream. I always thought anger was the most powerful emotional doorstop that a person has to struggle through but that is not the truth. Fear is worse. Fear is an ugly purse you keep in case of an emergency. There are many types of fear. My deepest fear? total failure, loss of everything I think is important to my well being. Each of us carries a bit of fear for various reasons. Some carry fear as a reminder of a past event. How they survived kept in the back of their minds ever ready to present itself like a cigarette incased in glass for a nick of time rescue. Or fear that keeps people just out of range, no attachments necessary, safer that way. Fear is the only emotional state that has its own categories based on levels of irrational thoughts and behaviors. PHOBIAS everyone has them, few like to claim them.

Fear is the hardest thing to push through. Taking action means facing that fear no matter the outcome. I have lived with fear in one form or another since I was a little girl. I was too young once upon a time to realize that my mother had serious mental illness. She is the one who introduced me to fear. She scarred me. I never felt safe in her presence. I never knew what she was capable of doing. She always made sure to remind me in a painful way if I forgot and allowed myself to get to comfortable around her. One misstep and POW. My mother would come at you guns blaring on a mission to make you pay for some transgression real or imagined. I am a grown up now or some semblance there of and yet I have the hardest time when I am fearful, waiting…for the shoe to drop.