I escaped my cocoon of wedding planning (the one with fingernail marks etched into the walls, counting down the days until this process is over) the other night to have dinner with friends.  I got lost one time on the way there and three times after I left.  Therein being reminded why I so rarely leave home.

Over dessert, one friend set her spoon down and said, “Y’all, so I have pretty much gotten over my fear of peeing myself.”   Even in this crass group, the statement stood out like a record screeching to a halt.  Details were requested, stories were told, and then…fears were shared. The conversation was long.  I was once again reminded of how much of what I do revolves around the things I fear.

Coincidentally (if you believe in that), I am reading Anne Lamott right now.  Which is to say, I have a roommate in my crazy head, and the companionship is nice.  Yesterday she told me, “Ugliness is creeping around in fear.”  My drive home last night brought this line to life.

I firmly believed when I was a child that my stuffed animals and dolls (especially the creepy porcelain ones with the passive, blush-stained faces) came to life when I left the room.  And conspired against me, naturally, because paranoia is passed down in some families like an heirloom.  Now I find myself wondering if the same government agency who brought those toys to life is also behind the fact that anytime I need to know where to go on the road, all signs disappear.  My hands on the wheel tighten to white-knuckle levels, my breathing quickens, and I get a little…unhinged. Giving myself little slaps, little “get it together”s like I am suddenly both player and coach on a high school football team.  Then the guilt that comes from the voice inside, the Perpetual Accuser, who tells me that there must be something seriously wrong with a person who can’t find her way from Point A to Point B.  And the convicting reminder, from a friendlier and more credible place: Wasn’t this exactly what I was frustrated with The Mom about twenty-four hours ago?  This propensity to get lost and freak out and get more lost? Which brings me to face the underlying fear that I am caught in an unending and inescapable cycle of behavior inextricably binding to genetics and plopping me down in this world, doomed to repeat patterns rather than break molds.

Sometimes, inconveniently, I forget that I believe in redemption.

Those adjacent to me bear the fallout of my fear, I’m afraid.  That’s just the way fallout works–don’t blame me, it’s physics.  And the ugliness known to creep around in fear is blasted onto these bystanders, these people closest to me whom I love most.  Lucky them.  Rolling eyes, raised voice, deep guttural sighs of hopelessness that are more about me but sound to be about them.  It’s all very bleak.  Except that there’s redemption.  There are phone calls and laughter.  There is putting down the seating chart and going to the pool.

Much of what is worth anything is ascribed to Stuff We Don’t Know, what is meant to be a mystery right now.  Sometimes we don’t get the sign until the moment we need it most, and yet we always end up at home. Staying in the mystery, as Anne told me, doesn’t happen when “we have our act together, because we can’t do it when we’re acting.”

Getting lost and feeling completely inept is one way to end the charade.

Another–that pool.  The place where the sun breaks through the clouds, the BF’s arms keep me above the surface, and I see how once again, inspired by fear, I have attempted to arrange my life in a frame that is too small.  How becoming unafraid is all about breaking that frame, which seems so messy and violent and unnecessary until the new one arrives.