I’ve actually already answered this prompt before, so I’m going to talk about another form of exercise, one driven by fear. I’m not in any way athletic, but I can run very fast, especially when I’m trying to get away from something. Here’s an article I wrote about this matter.
Do We Really Attract What We Fear?
Pondering the reason why roaches are drawn to me…
Image created using Canva
“Please check it for roaches first,” I begged my then-boyfriend, refusing to go into the bathroom. It was my first time visiting the family home, and while it was a beautiful house, it had also been built in the ’60s. We lived in the tropics, and experience had already taught me that old houses were hosts for long-time settlements of roaches.
He just laughed and assured me that their house had no roaches. To my own detriment, I chose to believe him and opened the door. As soon as I did so, a cockroach scurried right across my path. You can imagine my terror and ensuing rage.
Instead of being mortified and penitent as he should have been, my boyfriend was incredulous and then amused. “That has never happened before. I think you’re the problem.” What a jerk, right? I married him a few years later.
There’s Something about Me
Still, maybe he was right. Maybe I was the problem. As I continued to journey through life, I made the observation that things I feared or dreaded seemed to gravitate towards me. For instance, I’m not particularly athletic, but I’m especially averse to sports that involve balls — the literal kind — and for good reason. After being brained by a ball in gym class more times than I could count, I resolved to simply not be around them if I could help it.
Funnily (except I’m not laughing), life has a way of shoving you into situations from which you want to put as much distance as possible. When I’d much rather spend my time on a comfy couch with a book, I might just find myself watching a live volleyball or soccer match instead, even if I know those balls have homing devices that make mere spectating a dangerous undertaking in itself — but only for me. Time and again, those wayward balls find their way to yours truly, no matter where I place myself.
These are trivial matters, even if I give my fear of roaches much more gravitas than it actually deserves in the grand scheme of things. I definitely have more serious fears that were realized in such an ironic twist of fate, making them even more devastating. The first thing that comes to my mind, of course, when thinking about my fears that materialized is autism.
Fascinated, yet Fearful
The first time I learned about this condition, I was 15 years old. A college-aged friend of mine was studying to be a preschool teacher, and one of her classes involved taking a trip to a center for special needs. She told me about a gorgeous young man who did nothing but play the piano. He didn’t talk to anybody. He didn’t notice or acknowledge the people around him. He was autistic.
Thus began autism’s intrigue for me. I wasn’t necessarily obsessed with it, but it held a fascination for me. Still, even though I wanted to learn about it, I didn’t want to have to deal with it within my family. I thought it was a tragedy. I remember reading “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe” by one of my all-time favorite authors, Fannie Flagg. The narrator, Ninny Threadgoode, talked about her special-needs son, and it just filled me with such heartache and a kind of dread. I read it in my teens and never considered that my intense reaction could have been a foreshadowing.
Accepting the Dreaded
Unlike a roach that I can actually dispatch with a well-timed and well-aimed (timing and aim are two of my many waterloos, unfortunately) slipper strike or a spherical assailant that I can at least try to dodge or, when too late, hit back with comical vengeance, autism just defeated me and made me its bitch. I even have a Stockholm Syndrome of sorts going on. I actually tell people that I’m cool with it. I think I’m even sincere. I merely say that we’re working toward Level 1, the high-functioning kind. Autism is really au-some.
Make no mistake though. If given the choice between autism and no autism, I’d be answering “no autism” faster than double-struck lightning. This expression is actually apropos since lightning did strike twice in our family. I was breastfeeding my youngest as the developmental pediatrician assessed his three-year-old brother. A few years later, that baby received the same diagnosis. Not that any of that explains the expression, of course.
There are other things I’ve feared and had the misfortune of realizing, but that’s probably true for everybody. The French say it best: c’est la vie. Life’s irony packs such a wallop that it literally brings me to my knees. Don’t underestimate the force of weeping; you just can’t stay upright for very long. I think that’s what gives the whole thing such a bitter edge. Maybe if I hadn’t been so interested in autism, it would have hurt less? I’m not sure. Perhaps I’d have felt like a blindsided sucker. I can only imagine.
Reacting to a Realized Fear
The notion that we attract what we fear has associations with the law of attraction, a belief to which I don’t really subscribe, even if it does make some points that I agree with. While I don’t really believe that my negativity and focus on my fears helped shape my experiences. I can’t help but feel that dwelling on them somehow led to self-fulfilling prophecies.
I also have a petty streak that makes me take things personally, as though all these materialized fears were a deliberate ploy to make me suffer or to humble me. Even worse, it has me suspicious that life is making fun of me, that it finds the irony of roaches and balls choosing to fly at me or the prissy and finicky me endlessly dealing with disgusting (biological) matter rather hilarious.
The View from a Different Angle
When my logic veers toward the ridiculous, I have to pause and shift my perspective because, if you look at the big picture, many of my fears have not materialized at all. I won’t specify them as some people (me) would consider that as tempting fate. There are fears, of course, that happen as a natural course of life, and I simply have to accept them, no matter how painful. Then again, there are horrors I’m afraid to even think about, and I should remind myself to be grateful that I haven’t had to deal with them at all. I refuse to even consider adding a “yet” to that statement.
And, to be honest, I probably overestimate my magnetic charm to roaches and flying balls. Roaches are everywhere, after all. As for balls, I may not have a sporty bone in my body, but I do have plenty of school and national spirit, which means I have watched many basketball games in person without incident. I should remember this the next time a roach or a ball flies at me. When the thought “this always happens to me” petulantly crosses my mind, I should automatically correct myself with the reminder that “always” actually has a precise definition that would hardly apply to that situation.
Do you have a fear or phobia that lurks somewhere in the periphery, taunting you? I’d love to hear about it.
It was quite a stretch, connecting the prompt to this article, but I had just the hubris to do it. 😀 I hope you got something out of this post. Have a great one!
This Small Life 