I would NOT have made a great dentist

I have an irrational fear of wiggly teeth and pulling teeth, and looking at the gross bloodyish spot that the tooth used to be in before it came out.



I am not even kidding guys.  This makes me want to throw up.  Like, right now.

Let me rephrase that.  Touching a wiggly tooth will most definitely make me retch.  You know, the pleasant feeling you get when you almost throw up.  Incidentally I had the spits the other day for no apparent reason.  TMI?

So yeah, pretty much the majority of my fears are irrational.  Probably one of the only rational ones is sharks/swimming in the dark in the deep end.  That is very rational, obviously.

So the whole 7 year old losing the teeth thing isn't exactly the stage that excites me too much.  Or my eleven year old loosing a BIG FAT MOLAR recently.  Ugh.  Seriously feel queasy as we speak/write/read.

It's funny because when I was in nursing school and on surgical rotation, I totally enjoyed watching several pretty bloody and gross surgeries being performed.  Like a hysterectomy.  So cool!  The doctor's hand was so deep inside this lady's belly, it was crazy.  Remind me never to get a hysterectomy.  And I saw an old man get a circumcision once.  Which was pretty gross, because like, Grandpa penis, but other than that, it didn't make me want to puke or anything.   I remember changing a dressing on a bed sore that was the size of a dinner plate.  I am not even kidding guys.  I actually really found it more interesting than puke-worthy.

I really wish I could have seen my C-section.  If I was less scared of my immanent death and the immanent death of my littlest peanut, I might have requested to somehow be able to watch.  I mean, how cool would that have been to see??  Since it wasn't exactly a planned c-section, I didn't have time to even think about it though. 

Anyway, I always thought it was kind of funny that teeth are the thing that get me.  Wounds, gashes, bloody trips to the ER?  No problem at all.  Wiggly teeth?  I'm so out of there. 

I guess it's safe to say that becoming a dentist is definitely not in my future. 

fears

I have a bunch of unusual fears and one is passing tractor trailers in the rain. I've had this fear ever since I could drive on the highway.  I panic. It’s not pretty.  But those freaking huge trucks splash a crap load of stuff on your windshield so you are momentarily blinded and could potentially go off the road and die a fiery death! I think that’s a pretty rational fear. Also, I am positive that one of my kids is going to fall out of the car while I am driving on the highway. I have had many a mental freakout over the thought, and have had to actually pull over to just take a minute to chill out. Cod help me if someone opens a window in the backseat, because the sound of the window opening, like just the noise of the rushing air, would make me almost throw up – to me it sounds like the car door opening.  Is that weird? 

I am irrationally afraid of swimming in the deep end in the dark (did you ever read that short story by Stephen King about the oil slick??!!  It definitely took away my ability to ever skinny dip in the dark.  Thanks a lot SK), and irrationally afraid of shark attacks. I am positive I got attacked by a shark in Mexico when I was 16. I didn’t have the actual wounds to prove it, but I KNOW it happened.

I am rationally afraid of the book American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis and the picture of the guy on the cover. I had to hide that book from myself because it scared me so much. Freaking insane, sick book. Not in a good way either. I beg you not to attempt to read it.  I realize mentioning it in such a manner might just make you curious, which is pretty much why I bought it and read it in the first place, but it was a huge mistake.  I am not even kidding guys.

Some odd food fears:  biting into a rotten tomato, biting into an apple and seeing a worm, or even worse - 1/2 of a worm.  Oh em gee.  And I totally can't stand the thought of accidentally eating raw chicken, ew.  I feel like gagging right now.

I am also afraid of pulling one of my kids limbs out of their socket.  Which actually happened once, to my poor little Meg.  She was about 3 and we were at Gymnastics, and she was doing that thing where she would walk up my legs while I held her hands and she'd flip over.  I was totally distracted talking to someone while she was doing it, but all of a sudden, she let out a huge, pain-scream.  And Megan has always been a super mild kid - not dramatic at all.  She literally screamed the entire way to the hospital, and her arm from the elbow down was just hanging there.  Ugh it was awful.  We were lucky they took her right in and as soon as the doctor pulled it back into place (gross sounding but took about 1/10th of a second), she looked at me and smiled and said, "That feels so much better!"  In her little baby voice with tears all over her face.  It totally traumatized me.  


My fears aren't necessarily run of the mill - scared of spider-type fears.  Because I was a single mom for a long time, I had to deal with spiders and bad guys and the dark and all of that scary stuff on my own - I didn't have a guy there to smack the spider for me.  But I did sleep with a hammer under my pillow.  Not sure how I would actually defend myself with a hammer -- I guess I figured I could hammer the bad guy into submission? 

My BIL John, who isn't really a scaredy cat at all, is terrified of snakes.  He screams like a girl if he even thinks he saw one.  It's really funny.  I always picture him like one of those 50's housewives screaming on the chair in the kitchen because a little mouse ran through.  Incidentally, those housewives always wore cute aprons.  And had perfect hair and makeup.

I never wear an apron.  And my hair and makeup is pretty average.  Maybe I should wear an apron.  Hmph.

9/11

September 11th is always going to be a date that won't just pass by like normal for me. I don't think that I could ever forget what it felt like that day, in 2001, just watching. Watching lives change forever, people suffering and dying, our country hurting, then inevitably healing.


I wasn't DIRECTLY affected... I wasn't one of the thousands who lost a friend or a relative, my life. I didn't feel the heat of the fires, or the tremors of the explosions. I wasn't one of the ones pictured running for my life, or running to help save another's life. No matter, I was definitely AFFECTED. Besides being a New Yorker, I am lucky enough to be a citizen of the USA. I love our country, and I believe in it. I felt safe here. To have this happen in what felt like my back yard was such a scary realization that we are vulnerable.


We are all vulnerable to extremists, whether we live in the US, or Africa, or Afghanistan -- anywhere. We are all vulnerable, always, no matter where we are.


I was scared on September 11, 2001. I am still scared, and it makes me feel sad. I want to feel safe again, and I want to feel like I can provide my family with the safety that they deserve. I guess the best I can do is educate them, keep them free of ignorance, and teach them tolerance.

So that is what I am going to continue to do, because tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is September 12th, and it is the anniversary of the day when we started to fix what was broken, and I will never forget.