On fears: Morbid and Banal

I try to walk in the light and be fearless. And I am a lot better at it today then I was before. But I am still gripped by fear on many occasions. I have learnt though that the best way to combat fear is to voice it out loud. You take control then and fear loses it's hold over you (at least to some extent). So here I am voicing my fears.

A morbid imagination is something I've been blessed (or cursed) with. I remember many moons ago I freaked out my then boyfriend by saying, while we drove back from college late at night, that I wanted to smash his face through the windshield. Just to see it crack, to see his blood and tissue stain the glass, to see how his face contorted before the glass shattered. He had a look of horror on his face. We hadn't even been fighting! I'm surprised he didn't dump me right then and there. I'm sure I would have if the situation had been reversed. But that's it, I imagine morbid things sometimes, it just comes to me and I am powerless to stop it.

When I was pregnant I had a morbid fear, specially when on a motorcycle that something bad would happen. I would die or my child would die. It terrified me, often bringing me to tears in a matter of seconds, shocking my ex who was trying his best to drive safe. But there was no way to explain the panic that held me hostage in those moments.

The problem now is that fear of the unnatural and supernatural has faded. The fear that has taken deep roots in my heart today is fear of death. Not mine, my son's. And it is such an insidious fear. It makes me feel guilty even for thinking it let alone voicing it. But I need to let it out because it eats me from within.

I read about a biker being shot, a girl being axed to near-death, a five year old mysteriously dying after getting a fever and I break into a sweat. What about my son? What if some day it's him? All this time I've spent loving him, reading to him, putting him to sleep, having so much fun with him. Can it all really be snatched from me in a few seconds? And what if he doesn't die but struggles to live? Whenever I leave him I wonder if it'll be the last time I see him.

The thoughts alone make me ache like nothing else ever has. It is literally incomprehensible and the minute I think it I pray fervently that my thought doesn't translate into attracting this from the universe. What is this force? Is this the intense love I've read and heard about or seen in the movies which I was meant to feel for my partner? I can't understand it, I only know I haven't felt it before.

Another fear I grapple with is that which most women in the world and specially in our city deal with everyday. It just seems so heightened now. As a teenager I would rebel against my parents when they said don't drive alone at night. Today I say it before them. But when the fear works it's way into every aspect of your life you wonder how to make it stop. I went for a job interview (a job I got and love) in Janakpuri, and I remember thinking "What if it's a creepy guy trying to get me alone in some secluded area to grope me?". After having worked there for two months the thought still passed through my head when I was going for a pre-shoot meeting. Why? Why must women be forced to constantly think this way? How are we supposed to work, educate ourselves, evolve as people, enjoy our lives, anything, if we are constantly living in fear? No man wonders when he gets ready in the morning if that will be the day he gets molested or raped when he steps out of the house for an interview or a day at the office, why must we???

Fear of the dark, my quirky fear of hair and blankets, the thrill and accompanying horror of scary movies, they all seem so childish when faced with this. And yet a small part of me feels just the littlest bit stronger having said this. Is that really the key then? To air it out and let the sun shine so bright that there is no room for fear to lurk in dark corners?