My 3 Biggest Fears

Today, I want to talk about my three biggest fears.
For those of you who don't know me, you may read this and think, "Oh, that's nice, stranger."
For those of you who do know me, I almost hope it will be like taking a glimpse into my soul.
Okay, maybe it won't be that intense. I'm pouring my heart out here, though, to the best of my ability.
Give me some sort of emotional credit and we'll call it even, okay?

Here it goes.
Third on the list is....


3. Drowning 
I am absolutely terrified of drowning. This is a funny thought to a lot of people because ever since I was a child I've been a fish in water. Actually, that's probably a lie. When I was a child I was like a fish in water. Since I've gotten older, I've become clumsier and a lot more accident prone. Lance and I went to the water park in Six Flags last year. For those of you that have never been there, I'm going to give you a mental picture of one of the attractions. Actually, screw mental picture, I'll get you a real one (under). This giant thing creates these intense ass waves every five minutes or so that, I swear, you could serf on. Well I decided to get all ballsy to where I couldn't touch when the waves started because it sounded like a fun idea. WRONG. It was a terrible idea. Not a minute later, I was being washed under the waves and struggling for my poor life while trying to maintain the cool and collected, "I'm definitely not close to drowning" look, which, I failed miserably at by the way. Lance quickly saw through it and helped me find my way back to where my feet were able to touch the ground without waves crashing into my face and inhaling water for every single breath I went to take. In my personal opinion, drowning is the worst way I could imagine dying. When I suggest this, everyone insists that dying in a fire would be much much worse. At least in a fire, I'm going to pass out inhaling smoke fumes, then burn to deal while I'm unconscious. I would much rather that then knowing I have no other choice but to give up and breathe deep to let the water fill my lungs. I've had many nightmares about drowning over the past 10 years.



These next two are hard to place on a scale. Both Scare me probably equally as much. So, I'm going to try my best to put them in a proper order, but at least you'll know how close of a call it was.

2. Getting Fat
This shouldn't be as terrifying to me as it is. I've written a few times about this before, but this is honestly one of my biggest fears. When I'm unhappy with my body, I'm unhappy with everyone and everything around me. I'm bitter about the world. The picture below was taken when I was 11-12.

I was always a chubby child. Surprisingly, I never got a lot of shit for it in school. I heard it all the time though. People thought I was fat and I knew I was. I never got attention from "boys" in school. I knew if I didn't get my shit under control, I never would. When I finally got around to forcing myself to lose the weight, they starting taking some sort of interest from there.  At my weight right now, I have a BMI of 29.33. A BMI of 30 would put me under grade 1 obesity. Do you know how disgusted I am by that fact? I would have to lose 24 to be considered of healthy weight and I haven't weighed that much since I was in 3rd grade and much more shrimpy than I am now. Please, do me a favor and don't give me the "You're not ugly, society is ugly" anti-anorexia bull-shit. I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin, which isn't something I've had for awhile now. The lowest weight I've been at since my 3rd grade year was last summer when I was living my crazy life. Even then, I was still at any "overweight" BMI unless I lost another 4 lbs.
When I'm overweight, I'm depressed. When I'm depressed, I work less, I don't want to have human interactions, I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. I don't feel as though I can be sexually attractive and I always catch myself measuring myself up to other girls. That is unhealthy, wanting to be at a healthy weight is not.

My biggest fear in life, though, is this:

1. Not Being Able To Have a Family
This is something I've worried about since I was a 16-year-old girl even though I having a family was a way off in the distance reality. I have a disease that runs in my dad's side of the family. It's called Ehlers-Danlos. Do think I'm making this up? Look it up. I cannot recall which type runs in the family, but I know that it is extremely rare and there aren't many reported cases. It did however affect all three of my grandmothers children. My father died from it when he was 22. My Uncle died for it when he was in his...early thirties, I believe. My Aunt managed to survive until she was 40 years old. Then she died in her sleep on Christmas morning when I saw her the very day before thrilled that Christmas was the following day and she would be with her family. My grandfather outlived every one of his children and he only lived to be 56. I have to face the fact that if I can even carry a child to full term that this is a disease that could effect my children. I would more than likely outlive my child. That's what I worry about most, I think. I'm afraid I would not be able to carry a child to full term. I could try many times leading to heartbreak in the form of so many babies given to me and then ripped away because of miscarriage. Well, I suppose my biggest fear is knowing that I could make it 6-7 months and my child could die inside me and I would have to go through labor for a dead child who's breath I was never allowed to hear. In the backround of that fear, I also worry that by time I do have children I might be infertile due to all the Mountain Dew and coffee I've consumed throughout the years or my significant other might have directionally challenged dying sperm that can't quite make it to the egg. I want a child in my arms someday. I want to watch him grow knowing he has my hair and his daddy's eyes. I want to help him learn and tell him all of my stories (probably most of them once he's 18+). The thought that it is possible that I could be deprived of that in this life absolutely kills me.
 
This is my biggest fear in life. I want a family. When I'm old, I want to talk about my children and grandchildren and all of the crazy things I've seen them do over the years. If I am childless, I will feel incomplete. I feel like that would mean my life really counted towards something. Don't get me wrong, I want my years of friends, drinking, travelling, spontaneous adventures, and all of that jazz. After all of that though, I want to settle down and marry and have children. I want to have family meals and family movie nights and board game nights. Someday, I want to look at my 30 year old son and know that he is a product of me and how I raised him and I want to be proud.


For those of you who feel this read was a waste of time, know this:
If you want to make my life a living hell, you now know how.

Force feed me cake for a year every single day.
Rip out my ovaries at some point during that year.
Then come back in 5 years and drown me in a river.

I think I'll leave you all to think on that.