Fearful Friday

I drove up the road apiece after school today to meet some friends at Shoshone Falls. I have lived in this area for over four years, but had never been to see the local natural wonder. As we neared the falls, my friend Zealanda commented that Shoshone Falls is, "The Niagara of the West". That comment got me thinking about the actual Niagara Falls that I was privileged to visit twice over the course of my mission.

As I thought about those two p-day excursions, a long-buried memory came rushing back to me...I am scared of waterfalls. Not the cute little waterfalls in my hometown, of course. Being afraid of those falls would be like being afraid of a fuzzy blue teddy bear. I am afraid of REAL water falls, like Niagara and Shoshone which, if we were to continue the bear metaphor, would be like facing down a rabid grizzly the size of a small skyscraper. My companion in the photo below may look like she has her arm around me in a gesture of love, but really she was just trying to keep me from bolting away in abject terror before the photo was taken.

So I started getting a little nervous about visiting the falls...until we turned onto the narrow, winding road that led to the falls. Remember my fear of driving in bad weather? Well, it turns out that driving on anything but straight, flat roads in partly sunny weather pretty much freaks me out. But at least the knowledge that I could plunge to my death at any moment while attempting to navigate the blind turns distracted me from my fear of what was waiting for us at our destination.

Once we parked and I overcame my fear of accidentally driving my car off the driveway of death, I was free to focus on my fear of waterfalls...

...and my fear of heights, which conveniently resurfaced as we walked down the see-through stairs to the overlook. While other people, like the young children below, enjoyed the unobstructed view of the falls from the railing, I was content to stand back...way back...and take in the awesome force of nature from a distance.

Eventually I managed to pry one hand loose from the railing (the railing on the back part of the overlook that was about ten feet away from the railing near the falls) and snap some photos.

I was not brave enough, however, to get close enough to the real railing for a photo of me and the falls together. Instead, I chose to stay as close as possible to the nice, stable, non-fatal mountain that the overlook was built on.

Sure, the view from the other direction is a much more beautiful and special...but this nice safe view from the coward side of the overlook will always hold a special place in my heart. In fact, I may name my first child after it. Sagebrush Sure-Foundation Diesel has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Vin and I would call him/her "Sage" for short.

I had plenty of time during the drive home to reflect on my fears...waterfalls, heights, twisty cliff-rimmed, blind corners of death... and realized that I have more of them than I would like.

I am scared of spiders... especially my arch-Nemesis Frakenknspider who takes up residence in my bathroom when he isn't too busy eating neighborhood dogs and kidnapping small children.

I'm also scared of needles, and pins, and swords, and pretty much anything else sharp. The picture below? It is currently frightening me more than the state of our nation's economy, JFAC's proposed public school budget for the 2009-2010 school year, and swimsuit season combined. Really. I almost had to put a post-it over the picture below so I could type this paragraph. Sad, but true.

I am also scared of parents... not my parents, but the parents of my kidlets at school. Big people in general freak me out, which is one reason I am so content to spend my days surrounded by junior high kids. But I have heard enough stories of angry parents yelling at teachers to make parent-teacher-conferences an ulcer-inducing experience.

And then. of course, there is my newest fear: Somali pirates. Call me paranoid, but count myself lucky every time I make it all eight blocks to school without being hijacked, and I was glad to be traveling to Shoshone Falls today with friends just in case those sneaky Somalis tried anything on the freeway between my town and Twin.

When I started this post, I thought blogging about my fears might be good therapy. I thought that getting all of my phobias out in the open and examining them in the light of day would help me to overcome them.

But now I'm thinking that I will be lucky to make it through the night without dreaming about being crushed to death in a waterfall after falling from great heights while driving my car on twisty-roads in bad weather attempting to escape from hypodermic-wielding Somali pirates who wanted to yell at me about failing their kids. Their eight-legged-spider-kids.

So much for facing my fears. Repression is the way to go every time.