Biggest Fear

This week’s journal entry:

Write about your biggest fear in life. What, if anything, in life, do you fear the most? Explain your fear, and tell why you feel this way.

By Laura Black

I’m not sure that I have a biggest fear anymore. I used to have two fears – dying and being alone, but I believe I’m over those two fears. Well, I may not be completely over the dying fear, but it’s gotten much better. If I died tomorrow, I believe I would be at peace with who I am and what I’ve achieved.

After I had a hysterectomy when I was 33, I always worried about having a heart attack. At some point, I believe I read something about how after a hysterectomy you can increase your chance of heart attack. Somehow that got in my head, and I started to worry that I would have a heart attack. I guess that fear is still with me. It’s something I do worry about. I have acid reflux, so there have been many times that I felt as if I could be having a heart attack, or if I was, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I still check my pulse from time to time, hoping it’s not racing. I’m always fine, though.

I believe my fear of dying increased too when I worked for a funeral home. Working there definitely made me more aware of death and what the families go through, and I also think it made me become a bit of a hypochondriac. I started to worry I had this or that and worried about dying. I definitely developed my anxiety during this time period. I started to become anxious a lot, and I started to worry about death in general. It also made me start to think about my life and how much I wasn’t happy in my marriage.

As my marriage started to crumble, I then started to worry about being alone. I had been with the same person for 17 years. How could I possibly be alone?  I could not start over and have to be alone; however, before I was married, I did live alone. During the time I lived alone before I was married, I always worried about being alone and how I needed to get married so I wouldn’t be alone. Then when I got married, I was alone most of the time. I became so used to being alone, but I wanted the companionship of being with someone and not being alone.

Once I got divorced and lived alone, I realized I was totally fine. I could be alone without a problem. I believe one of my fears was dying alone. If I had no companion, then I would die alone. What I figured out after my divorce was being alone was fine. I just needed to be closer to family and friends. If I felt alone, I could at least go hang out with family or friends and not be alone. Now I’m married again and not alone. I actually have a companion that wants to spend time with me, which makes a huge difference. I didn’t have that before.

Overall, I guess I still fear death to a point, but I don’t fear being alone. Yes, I prefer to have a companion, but I at least know I made it through it once before, so I know I could do it again if needed. So, those are my fears. What are yours?