Fear

I worry, I weigh three times my body

I worry, I throw my fear around...

I wasn't always afraid. 

I used to enjoy driving around just for the heck of it, late at night, with the windows down and the radio blaring. I once lay down in the middle of a suburban street and tried to see the stars, and enjoyed the thrill. 

Now, fear is an almost constant companion. 

There's something about hurling down a concrete road in a metal box that is rather worrisome. Add in other metal boxes doing the same thing, and it gets worse. Add in drivers who stop suddenly or change lanes without looking or without putting on their turn signal and it gets scary. Add in curvy roads and overpasses, and it becomes utterly terrifying. 

---

Now I have a beautiful daughter, who steals my heart every day. 

I am constantly afraid of something happening to her, and I cannot bear to think about it actually happening.

So I check her breathing every fifteen minutes, and sleep with her in the bed next to me because I feel like, if she were to stop breathing in her sleep, I might somehow notice and wake up in time to save her.

...by the time I recognize this moment

this moment will be gone...

---

In the past, pastors have told me that fear is a sin. Fear means I am not trusting God. 

I don't know if I believe them or not. I only know that I try to give my family to God, only to snatch them back the moment we get on the highway.

I try to rationalize it away - there's no point in worrying because there's nothing I can do about it. My husband has this attitude mastered.

It doesn't work for me.

So I apologize to God, over and over, for being afraid. I watch my little girl sleep in her carseat and try not to think about what could happen. I try to concentrate on how we are safe, this moment. I live with the rushes of adrenaline. And I am grateful to my husband when he takes us on the side streets.

---

...and I will wait to find

if this will last forever

and I will pay no mind

when it won't and it won't

because it can't...

The world is a terrifying place. Bad things happen all the time.

Children die.

Children die in childbirth. Mothers die in childbirth. Children die in their sleep at four months old, and no one knows why.

Having children is not a matter of whether I can afford it, or whether I want them. It's a matter of whether I will be able to overcome the fear enough to risk it.

I don't know how grownups do it.

But I'm going to have to learn how. I have no choice. Somehow, with God's help, I will live in this troubled world and face each day with something more than fear.

...and I will waste no time

worried 'bout no rainy weather

and I will waste no time

remaining in our lives together

(lyrics from "Clarity" by John Mayer)