Tag: fear

Smells Like Toast

I was filled with worry as I got off the subway and began walking toward Will’s Eye Hospital. I’d been dealing with double vision for fifteen years, and it just kept getting worse. The effort of trying to keep two images merged into one required so much mental energy. I was always exhausted. Normal everyday things had become such a challenge, like reading signs with lots of words, such as fast food menus and plane and train schedules: I’d end up covering one eye to keep the words from swimming...

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4 Simple Tips to Overcome Your Fear

At College Plus, when we interview potential students, we ask them what they feel their biggest challenge will be in school. Many times they’ll express nervousness about being new and not knowing what to expect in the college environment. When they do confess it, oftentimes sheepishly, I tell the student that it’s very common to feel that way and reassure them that we are there to help them through it. It makes me wonder, though, how many people are stopped right in their tracks when they come...

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The Power of a Peer: How a Friendship is Changing the Way I See Myself

When my daughters were growing up, our family watched a lot of Disney movies. (And I do mean a LOT of Disney movies!) I’ve missed most of the newer ones in these years between children and grandchildren, but I was channel surfing one day when I happened upon Enchanted. It was just starting and it drew me in, so I kept watching. Like many Disney movies, this one includes a prince in its cast of characters. Although this prince is handsome and sings like an angel, he bumbles a bit and is not terribly...

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The Road Trip

The autumn when my daughter Alison was 19, she and one of her best friends decided to drive from our home in Anchorage, Alaska to visit friends and relatives in Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Since she was no longer a minor, Alison didn’t have to get our permission to go; but out of respect, she asked for our blessing. No small undertaking, the mileage for this trip would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 miles, many of those on the infamous ALCAN (Alaska-Canada) Highway—notorious...

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Wapano

I’ve been feeling fearful lately. A small snowball of anxiety (I can’t even remember what the initial worry was) seems to have triggered an avalanche of dread. I find myself going about my day, talking to someone about something harmless like what I might want for dinner, when I become vaguely aware of another conversation taking place in my subconscious; voices mumbling about something bad that’s about to happen. If I stop what I’m doing to address the voices, sometimes I can hear what they’re...

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