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This is turning into the feelings blog. (People who know me might think that’s rich, since I only have ice where my heart should be.) But hey, we are pulling out the teddy bear and moving in for a biiiig group hug. It’s okay, here’s a kleenex. Now blow. Hard. Ewww, did that come out of your nose? I think some got on me.

Anyhow, I have been thinking about fear alot lately. A few days ago me and some other folks climbed up the small climbing wall and scrambled down a rope ladder-bridge thing by essentially climbing it upside down. Now, I’m real terrified of heights, so you’d better believe I had the nice stink of fear on me (Really. It makes you smell different, ask dogs.) But I did it anyway, even though I seriously contemplated flat-out refusing more than once. While I suppose I could act all proud of it, I know the awful truth: I’m actually a total wussy.

Cuz the only thing that scares me more than doing things that scare me is the self-loathing that comes with not doing those things.

That might sound nobler than it is. It’s a strange need to never stop in the face of fear. A combo of fight and flight: run head-on into whatever scares the crap out of me. More than once, if need be. Sometimes it works; sometimes, eh, not so much.

So for things like the rope ladder where I can just put my head down and do it, that might be good, although I don’t really know if it also results in a slower curve for actually getting over fears. If you run fast enough into something you hardly have to deal with it.

I can think of one occasion when this method didn’t serve me so well. For example, a number of years ago I wanted to learn to play volleyball (so Gabrielle Reece and I can have something in common besides the fact we both think she’s hot). The only place I could find that worked for my schedule was to join “beginner” games at the Y, advertised as a good place to learn how to play. I showed up and jumped in a couple games. I was super up-front about the fact that I wanted to learn. The only problem was that most of the people playing were more intermediate than beginner, and the majority were, hmmm, how can I put this nicely? Super-duper complete and utter fucking assholes when it came to the sport. They were really determined to win each of these completely stake-less pick up games, and if you fucked up, you made them lose. And being a beginner, “Fuck Up” should have been on my t-shirt.

Now a few people were very kind and took the time to teach me a little, and had patience with my errors. But it was more like being coached by 25 angry, middle-aged guys with a volleyball vendetta. The first few times I just pep-talked my way around, trying to forget my fear of ball sports in general and my anguish with letting my nasty team down. After the games I’d try and practice things like serves with no instruction, drilling until I got bruised forearms. Then I’d show up for the game. Some dickhead would yell in frustration at my ineptness. I’d leave, try and remember I liked the sport itself, then go back again.

After a while I started getting very anxious and weepy before I’d show up. But I was so determined not to let anyone’s idiotic attitude stop me that I walked in again and again. Then finally, one day after I was pumping myself up to join the den of assheads, I started bawling. Cuz I’m a baby. But anyway, I sort of realized that maybe this wasn’t the place for me to learn and I didn’t have to keep going back to something that made me very unhappy.

I do really want to learn volleyball at some point, and sadly, I didn’t find another option because I think that’s the best strategy: try some place new.

I guess I’m of two minds about it. On the one hand (and I realize I’m bitter all over again at the Y-dick-swingers) well, maybe walking into fear is good, but only to a point. If I’m in utter misery over something that should be fun, then I don’t have to do it that way. But at the same time, I kinda realize as I write this that I wish there had just been a better place to learn to play, or that I’d had a nice posse to bring with me to beat down those fucks. Because this persistence in the face of fear has also been helpful. I don’t need to bungee jump off a bridge, but I like that I refuse to be cowed by fear too often.

That’s right: no easy answers on the feeling blog. Only emoting here. Kleenex whore.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 9:29 pm and is filed under exercise, feelings, first person, healthy crap, sanity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.