Contests
Poll
User login
Normal 0
I know it’s cliché to say that a person can’t appreciate certain things when they’re young, but I’m going to say it anyway because it’s true. Our young adulthood years are relatively free of adult-like worries.
Ages & Stages
Afraid of Living in Fear
By Elizabeth Esse Kahrs
I know it’s cliché to say that a person can’t appreciate certain things when they’re young, but I’m going to say it anyway because it’s true. Our young adulthood years are relatively free of adult-like worries. As children, we receive a pass of sorts. Like blinders on a horse, we simply cannot see or comprehend what could lie ahead for us in the future. As adults, we look back fondly at this time because we come to fully understand what has been taken from us.
Kids are often accused of taking things for granted, because things are for granted. This is a given until one reaches an age where they can see how precarious things are, or when something unsettling happens to drive that point home.
I look at my children and I see their bliss. But fast forward to middle age and they will be like me, trying their best to get back that blissful feeling, trying to strap on the blinders and ignore all the bad things happening around them. Death, disease, the economy—I try my best to block it out, but it permeates my brain. There seems to be no shortage of bad things. I have to fight to continue living an appropriate life and not a life ruled by fear. I have to try my best not to think ahead to what might be coming for me. Intellectually, I know none of it is in my control. Still, it is a challenge not to think about things I don’t want to think about.
A few weeks ago, my best friend’s husband died suddenly of a heart attack. Since then I’ve had to work extra hard to fight back the fear. I think of her, alone, with her thirteen-year-old daughter and although I was there for her during the initial stages of it all, I have to wonder how she will continue. I think of her in her house for the weeks and months and years to come, never being able to escape what happened. There is nothing I can DO. There is no way that I can take back what has happened to her.
This is the closest experience I’ve had with death. Never before has something affected me so viscerally and I’m struck by the fact, again, how lucky I’ve been. I’ve had several close calls in my life, but I’ve never lost anyone. As I look ahead, I know that all of it is coming for me; this is just the beginning. But I have a choice— to give in to this fear and let it rule my life, or to embrace the life I have and move forward, boldly.
