Friday, August 19, 2005

The Weird Forms that Fear Takes

Though I feel pretty cool now about having this bit of surgery next week, I did notice that I've done a couple of things that I do when I'm scared and don't know it.

Yesterday morning I spent about a half an hour obsessing about what earrings to put on. Finally, I solved the problem by changing tops. If I have trouble getting dressed quickly in the morning, then for sure some uneasiness is stirring.

My other signal is when I see myself calmly do some automatic action in a nonsensical way. Pour orange juice into the jar of peanut butter instead of the glass--I stopped just short of doing that this week. Once years ago, on the morning I was taking a checkout dive to get my scuba certification, I methodically tried to put a pair of pants on over my head.

With tactics like these I've pretty much managed to avoid feeling fear directly. Am I the only one? Do other people do this?