For a class I am taking, I was required to read Tim O’Brien’s piece about the Viet Nam war, “The Things They Carried.” My eyes kept skimming past and over the words. I didn’t want those images in my head. Couldn’t have them; I didn’t want more iterations of fear/anxiety inscribed in my space. Especially ones of men I did not know, that this author wanted to make me know, from a long-ago war I’d already, I thought, put behind me, already denied.
I try to finish my reading assignment, but the fear of living in my house today is jealous. It is whining at me, saying, “Why read this shit if you aren’t going to examine me? Pay attention to ME! I am here! And I am hungry!
I give up and shut down my screen. I close my eyes and take my internal temperature. How am I doing? I imagine all the sources of fear in my environment: they are little pustules of pus, waiting to burst into the stew of my emotional health and ruin it, curdle it. They have different categories, labels, dependent upon their point of origin: there are those fear pimples that grew on me though the seeds came purely from the outside –– the pandemic or the weather (I live in hurricane territory). These are global, less personal, but insidious and beyond my control and, therefore, if I allow, terrifying.
And then there are those fears generated from within, personal, old familiar friends, bubbling up until I notice that they are there, lurking on the thin skin of my complacency. Like if I’m feeling a bit tired, I might twig to: when, where will I have the next epileptic seizure? Will it be mild or really bad? I flash on visuals from previous bloody incidents and hospital visits. That can escalate into: am I safe living alone?, will my house get robbed again? Who will take care of me in my dotage? Will I need to pay someone? And then my anxiety can whirl up and out into: Do I have enough income?
I think that Fear has become too constant a companion these days.
I take a deep breath and open my eyes. Thinking is dangerous. Folly. And I stand up, leave my house and go for a walk. Outside is the not-to-be-taken-for-granted blue, blue sky and sunlight painting ever-fascinating shadows all over everything. In the background, neighborhood dogs bark at my passing. My imagery of pustules of fear has faded, and I return home.
As I come in the door, my phone is ringing. I answer, and my friend says, “Have you seen the news? A mob has stormed the Capitol! Congress! Their on the Senate floor! The National Guard and FBI SWAT teams have been called in! I’m so upset.”
And a new pustule blooms and bursts as I slide down to the floor, sitting with the phone pressed against my ear and my back against the door to the outside.