Fear

My friend Erin is deathly fearful of spiders. Ordinarily, this would not be a stretch. Many people have fears of spiders or insects or creepy crawlies of unknown identification. However, if you knew my friend Erin, you would find this phobia extremely entertaining. I know, it's not nice to make fun of people's fears especially if they let you in their inner circle and share their fears with you. However, you have to know my friend Erin to understand why this is funny. Erin is a gorgeous human being. Once a ski racer, she used to, and today still, flies down mountains on skis at speeds most people drive their cars. She drops off of ledges of snow called cornices onto 50 degree slopes and skis willy nilly through forests of trees. She is a photographer and producer and one of her many white-knuckling assignments was war correspondent in Bosnia, which she told no one until she was safely back home . She has lived all over the United States, unafraid to pick up and leave for any reason with no plan, no money and no clue. If you looked up the word "spontaneity" in the dictionary, you would see her picture. Once an accomplished Windsurfer, she has traded in her high speed, adrenaline junkie sport for something more sedate (not): Kiteboarding. I don't know if you have ever watched kiteboarding or tried it, but it combines every imaginable fear of the typical layperson, including high speed, high altitude and wearing a bikini in the wind. Some of the best kiteboarders get launched hundreds of feet in the air and can travel as fast as 60mph across the water. My friend Erin is one of these people.

Recently, she posted on facebook about a spider she encountered in Fiji. She described it the sound it made like a "woman sprinting in 8 inch high heels". And what weapon does my best friend, the spider killer reach for? Her camera of course. She took a picture of the little arachnid which you can see above. Clearly, it had to be significant given the fact that the eye is actually reflecting light. However, my friend's fear of spiders got me thinking......

What do we fear most?

Google has all kinds of "top ten fears" depending on the source. Flying is one of them, although my friend Erin would beg to differ. Some people fear tangibles like spiders, snakes, mice, cockroaches, & dogs. Others have situational phobias like fear of heights, fear of enclosed spaces, fear of going outside.....There's the ever traditional fear of blood (my personal favorite) and lets not forget the widespread fear of clowns thanks to Chucky and Bozo. Many fears are born out of what we've been taught or the concerns we have at a particular moment in time at a particular level of development.

In a 2005 Gallup poll (U.S. A.), a national sample of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 were asked what they feared the most. The question was open ended and participants were able to say whatever they wanted. The most frequently cited fear (mentioned by 8% of the

teens) was terrorism. The top ten fears were, in order: Terrorist attacks, spiders, death, being a failure, war, heights, criminal or gang violence, being alone, the future and nuclear war. (cited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear)

Of course we don't see the regulars on this list like public speaking, being burned alive or hip surgery because those are more adult fears. My friend Erin will be happy to know she shares her fear with 13-15 year olds across the nation.....

How about the under ten set? I asked my 8 year-old daughter, "what are you most afraid of?"

She thought for a moment and then, very frankly, stated, "hippos." (Because we have so many of them here in Northern California......Wha?)

"Yep, Hippos. they have REALLY big mouths and can chomp you!"

My six year old, who aspires to be her eight year-old sister, only better, decided that she was afraid of giraffes.

"Why giraffes?" I asked.

"Because they can kick really hard!"

Thankfully, what my children fear most resides on another continent, but I still intend to use it to my advantage when bedtime rolls around. After all, fears are generally nurtured and it's probably not a bad thing that they are afraid of animals many times their size.....

With less than a week to go before the big day when some very tall guy is going to make a very large hole in my back side, rip my leg off, saw off the end, drive a large spike down the middle, carve out a hole in my pelvis, bang a cup into it and put the whole thing back together like some kind of chinese puzzle, I started to chicken out. One thing that was really starting to bother me was that he was planning to saw off a perfectly good femur. The ball of my femur was the only good thing I had going in that joint. It was smooth, had good blood supply, it was really the sacrificial lamb of this whole procedure. The problem was inside the joint itself. Ridden with inflammation, bonespurs and lousy mechanics on the pelvis side, the reason for the surgery was really due to the fact that the post-traumatic arthritis that had developed in the socket was causing great amounts of pain. However, despite breaking it to smithereens years ago, the femur itself was in pretty good shape. I was rather proud of that femur. I had spent countless hours of physical therapy trying to keep it from disintegrating and it had served me well through my many physical exploits, two pregnancies and travels around the world. Now, in my gratitude, I was going to have it sawn off. It seemed....wasteful and wrong.....I felt cheap and opportunistic for sacrificing a perfectly good bone for a sexy, sportier model of metal and polyethylene. I am a joint slut and Madonna's Material Girl is my anthem.

but sawing off my femur was not the source of my anxiety and fear, (which sounds a little butch. Hoo-rah) I hadn't figured out yet what was giving me cold feet. All my ducks were in a row, preparations made, surgical team in place, papers signed....What was I missing?

On an early Thursday morning, I dropped my kids off at school just before driving to Los Angeles to have my hip replaced. In the moments that followed, it became clear to me what I feared more than anything. As I hugged my kids goodbye, I was suddenly gripped with the fear that this might be the last time they see their mother. As dramatic as that sounds, hip surgery has it's risks and despite my otherwise healthy body, excellent diet and positive attitude toward my rehab and the excellent team I had chosen to perform the procedure, there was still a chance that something could go wrong. Was I being selfish? Had I weighed every possible option? Why was I doing this again? As I walked out of the classroom, I was overcome with sadness. Sobbing uncontrollably, it was clear what I feared most and had taken for granted day in and day out. I feared never seeing my daughters (or my husband) again and the idea of my family growing up without their mother and wife. It was a very long drive to Los Angeles.