Dec 15: December Meme
Dec. 20th, 2014 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightly_litDec 15: What's a really unusual/random fear you've had, and what has it taught you? ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
septembers_coda
As always, with the very interesting questions! I had to put a lot of thought into this one, because although I've had A LOT of fear in my life, there's usually been a good reason for it, but I thought of one: The first time I ever traveled without someone else making all the arrangments, I was PETRIFIED. I just had no idea what to expect--whether you had to make hotel reservations ahead of time or be stuck sleeping on the streets, or if you could find a hotel when you got there (turns out it can be either!), and I mainly had SOO many fears about the rental car. But like I said, I usually had a reason for having fear; I must have sensed something coming, because when we went into the bank for literally four minutes to exchange some money (we were in Canada), when we got back to the car, someone had dented the bumper! I'd already been freakin' melting down, and now my worst fear had been realized. I hadn't been able to enjoy the trip at all, so incredibly anxious about everything, with a horrible headache.
The next half hour or so was a miasma of horror, and then, when I was pushed to the breaking point, I just had to let it all go, everything. If the worst happened, well, so be it. I'd come all this way and spent all this money; the least I could was have some damn fun, so I did. I learned you can't control everything (indeed, in some situations you can't control anything, and travel tends to be like that).
That was the first bud of an adventurous spirit I developed over the course of other travels (during some of which disaster did indeed strike to varying degrees, like the time a semi came inches from flattening us), when I learned to roll with the punches, have a devil-may-care attitude, and enjoy every minute as much as possible ... because it could be your last. ;-)
As it turned out, in my hysteria to be so careful with the rental car, when they gave us the diagram of the car as we picked it up on which we were supposed to mark all the already existing dents and such, I'd drawn a big, thick line RIGHT in that exact spot on the bumper due to a long, thin scratch I'd seen there, so it all worked out perfectly. Serendipity, baby! I learned to trust in that, too.
Good question; thanks for asking!
septembers_codaAs always, with the very interesting questions! I had to put a lot of thought into this one, because although I've had A LOT of fear in my life, there's usually been a good reason for it, but I thought of one: The first time I ever traveled without someone else making all the arrangments, I was PETRIFIED. I just had no idea what to expect--whether you had to make hotel reservations ahead of time or be stuck sleeping on the streets, or if you could find a hotel when you got there (turns out it can be either!), and I mainly had SOO many fears about the rental car. But like I said, I usually had a reason for having fear; I must have sensed something coming, because when we went into the bank for literally four minutes to exchange some money (we were in Canada), when we got back to the car, someone had dented the bumper! I'd already been freakin' melting down, and now my worst fear had been realized. I hadn't been able to enjoy the trip at all, so incredibly anxious about everything, with a horrible headache.
The next half hour or so was a miasma of horror, and then, when I was pushed to the breaking point, I just had to let it all go, everything. If the worst happened, well, so be it. I'd come all this way and spent all this money; the least I could was have some damn fun, so I did. I learned you can't control everything (indeed, in some situations you can't control anything, and travel tends to be like that).
That was the first bud of an adventurous spirit I developed over the course of other travels (during some of which disaster did indeed strike to varying degrees, like the time a semi came inches from flattening us), when I learned to roll with the punches, have a devil-may-care attitude, and enjoy every minute as much as possible ... because it could be your last. ;-)
As it turned out, in my hysteria to be so careful with the rental car, when they gave us the diagram of the car as we picked it up on which we were supposed to mark all the already existing dents and such, I'd drawn a big, thick line RIGHT in that exact spot on the bumper due to a long, thin scratch I'd seen there, so it all worked out perfectly. Serendipity, baby! I learned to trust in that, too.
Good question; thanks for asking!