You know those people who say they have absolutely no fear—of anything? Sorry, but I need to call bullshit on that. While residing in the dorms during my sophomore year of college, there was a guy down the hall who claimed he was impervious to fear. I don’t recall his given name, but everyone called him Silo. One of my suitemates, Mike, had a pet boa constrictor named Spot, a relatively harmless, seven-foot long creature that didn’t do much other than sleep as 
often as possible and eat a live lab rat twice a month. In between bouts of slumber and terrorizing small rodents, he hung out in his rather luxurious, large tank, though Mike would occasionally let him out to slither around the room and explore his surroundings. Spot was certainly a curious fella, and he was instrumental in helping me overcome my own fear of snakes—hell, I even let him spiral around my shoulders and neck a few times, confident that Mike would attend to the situation if my face turned blue in the event that Spot decided to coil too tightly. One afternoon as I came home from class, I was greeted by another suitemate who informed me that Spot had decided to fly the coop while Mike was cleaning his tank. We notified everyone in our section of the dorm, including Silo—knowing Spot could easily slither out of the room and down the hall, nonchalantly stopping to explore any area accessible through an open door. Moments after our search began, we heard a gut-wrenching scream, a sound worthy of inclusion in any really bad, B horror flick. Upon arrival at Silo’s room, we found him standing on his desk, horrified, holding a baseball bat that was thrashing from side to side as his arms flailed wildly—defensive moves that made me wonder if Silo was aware that boa constrictors were incapable of flight. He said he heard a noise and was convinced it was Spot on the attack. At almost the same moment, we heard Mike’s voice from down the hall, yelling, “Found him! All clear!” We never discovered the source of the noise that caused Silo to have such a freak-out moment, but it called into question the validity of his claim to be truly fearless. Ahhhh, fun times.
By definition, there is a difference between anxiety and fear. Fear is an emotional state that exists in the presence of danger and ends once that danger has passed. Anxiety exists when we anticipate a danger or threat, regardless if one is present or not. Whether fear or anxiety, both are fascinating actions of the psyche. I once heard a self-help guru say that fear is the process of our minds imagining and focusing on the worst possible outcome from a certain situation. So if you look at it from the right perspective, fear is really just your imagination on steroids.
Pick a fear. I’ve got plenty.
It’s hard to think of a time in my life when I wasn’t afraid of something. Hell, I harbored so many fears as a child, I could have presented them as a weekly collection for third-grade show and tell. I was 
envious of classmates and friends who operated from a much more carefree standpoint, seemingly fearless and incredibly confident in virtually everything they did. I, on the other hand, was always the cautious kid, convinced that venturing into uncharted and often forbidden territory would result in some ominous outcome ranging from shame and humiliation to bodily injury or even death. Most of my fears weren’t at all uncommon—tornadoes, arachnids and reptiles, heights, failure, and, um—-road graders. OK, so perhaps a fear of road graders is neither common nor rational, but given my affliction with arachnophobia, it made sense since the giant earth mover resembles an inordinately large spider. It becomes rational only when you understand the origin of that fear. My older siblings, in their torturous attempts to inflict permanent, emotional scars on their baby brother, convinced me that the large piece of motorized machinery which scraped the surface of the gravel road where we lived each week was actually an extraterrestrial monster whose sole purpose was to travel to earth, seek me out, scoop me up and eat me alive. It’s amazing the things you can convince a four-year-old to believe.
Fortunately, that fear was short lived, and my anxiety over gargantuan construction equipment was completely abated by my fifth birthday. If you aren’t already familiar with the road grader story and would like to learn more, it’s the subject of an earlier blog post as well as part of a chapter in my book. You can read about it by clicking here..
I remember watching the annual telecast of The Wizard of Oz one year—I was five or six at the time. Just as Uncle Henry and Auntie Em were hauling ass into the storm cellar, leaving Dorothy and Toto to fend for themselves just before they were swirled off to the land of Glenda-in-a-bubble, the show was interrupted with the all-too-real bulletin that a funnel cloud had been sighted five miles from our house. As my parents scurried us into the basement, I was certain that I was the intended bulls-eye for the cyclonic monster and as long as I was in close proximity to my family, their lives were in jeopardy. But at that age, one hasn’t quite mastered the art of sacrificial, heroic escapes designed to save the lives of family members in peril. I was forced to sit out the storm on my mother’s lap in the basement until it was safe to resurface, unscathed, and continue watching the remainder of Dorothy’s hostile takeover of Oz.
It’s funny how some fears we harbored as children don’t always disappear once we’re adults. That’s true for the rational as well as the irrational ones. My intense fear of high places has always been as much a part of me as being right-handed and it’s just as strong today as it was way back when. While my childhood pals would climb to the uppermost reaches of any tree as if they were part chimpanzee, I would muster the courage to make it only to the first solid branch, perching 
myself there with the claim that I had secured an injury in the process, such as a twisted wrist or sprained ankle. Faking an injury would disqualify me from having to venture any higher as my buddies would marvel at the incredible views from their near-heavenly elevation, one of the rewards one reaps from trekking as high as possible. Once the excuse involving the ankle or wrist trauma had worn out its welcome, I’d reach into my arsenal of subterfuge and pull out a fresher reason for not climbing any higher, such as having stopped to examine an extraordinary bug that I would profess had never before been witnessed by human eyes. Given my fear of spiders, which also included many species of insects and was well-recognized by my pals, they placed little credence in the claim that I had suddenly taken a serious interest in entomology.
There have been other fears as well, including the fear of failure and abandonment. It’s strange because I had never fallen from a high branch of a tree, had never experienced the terror of a tornado, had never been bitten by a tarantula or black widow, had never felt the stings of true failure, and had never felt even a hint of the threat that I would come home from school to find the locks changed and a ten dollar bill with a note attached that read, “Best of luck. Keep in touch.” Yet those fears were unshakable throughout my childhood, with no logical reason for their existence in my psyche other than being perceived threats. Though my stomach still winds up in my throat at the mere thought of bungee jumping, I’m happy to report that I’m much easier around spiders and I’ve even waged war against several killers, including black widows—and I have been victorious every time, walking away with a sense of empowerment that made me feel as if I could face any of my fears head-on at that very moment—well, except, of course, my fear of heights.
Along with letting go of my intense fear of spiders, I no longer fear the wrath of Mother Nature’s fury quite like I used to. I’ve forged through the requisite steps supposedly designed to overcome any intense phobia—I faced it head on, bravely stood my ground, and convinced myself that it held no power over me. OK, in the interest of full disclosure and total honesty, the tornadoes I confronted were tiny funnel clouds gently swirling approximately eight-hundred feet up in the sky with absolutely no immediate threat of touching down anywhere on the planet, let alone close enough to put me in any kind of danger. In both instances, their duration was short lived, barely long enough for me to pull out my smartphone and snap a few pics. Still, I’m proud to have confronted that particular demon, and my bravery has progressed to a superhero level. Now, if the sirens go off, I’ll go outside to see if I can spot the oncoming carrier of doom instead of heading to shelter and safety. Yes, folks. I have evolved from tornado wimp to total twister stud.
Another shameless pitch for the book.
I believe there actually is a logical and less obvious reason for some of our phobias—an explanation as to why I have always been so terrified of heights, or why some people are absolutely petrified by fire, and others by small, enclosed places. I think you’ll find it rather fascinating, and I will expound on that in my book. Oh, don’t get all bent out of shape that I’m not revealing such earth-shattering, life-changing information here in a blog post. We’re talking about eleven or twelve months, and it’s no different than the time you spent patiently waiting for the next Hunger Games or Harry Potter installments. You survived that and you’ll survive this.
Been there, done that.
One of my greatest fears, at least as an adult, has been the fear of death—more of an anxiety about that moment when we are faced with the realization that this journey is over, what comes next is either a dark nothingness or something else that may or may not be pleasant, and that there isn’t a damn thing we can do to stop it. Fortunately, my fear has waned significantly after my own experience with dying last year. While I would certainly like to remain on this good earth as long as possible, I was given a glimpse of what death actually involves and, as a result, I am no longer fearful of the moment when the jig is up. However, that has been replaced by a new fear: gerascophobia, or the fear of growing older.
Since my return from the gateway to death, I’ve begun to understand what it truly means to appreciate each day we have on this earth. But that has also come with an awareness that living well into our geriatric years is a sort of give and take. Yes, we get more sunrises, 
sunsets, and Christmases to cherish—and, if we’re lucky, more sex. But like it or not, we experience those moments more slowly, with more pain, and with a lot more wrinkles. I’d like to tell you that getting a second chance after facing death has allowed me to shed all of my vanity, no longer caring whether or not I look younger than my years. But that would be a lie. We live in a society that reveres physical beauty and we are conditioned to strive for eternal youthfulness. Sure, we admire female celebrities like Helen Mirren, Diane Keaton or Jamie Lee Curtis, who are the calendar girls for aging gracefully and, along with their male counterparts the likes of Kevin Costner, George Clooney and Tom Hanks, have vowed to never go under the knife. But far too many of us worship the ones who have made no secret about their multiple surgeries, like Cher who, at the age of 70, has skin tighter than the ass of a 25 year-old fitness model. We are told that sixty is the new forty, eighty is the new sixty, and Betty White is the new sexy. That last part is irrefutable. If only we could all look even half as good as she does at the age of ninety-four. So, I don’t deny that I would like to maintain some semblance of physical youthfulness as I grow old. Hey, it’s a different set of standards when you’re gay. Admitting that you missed a few days at the gym is worthy of a month-long shunning. I’ve been fortunate to have aged well so far, and I’d like to hang on to whatever it is that has helped me look and feel fifteen years my junior. OK, ten years.
No more do-overs.
But my fear of growing older isn’t about sagging ass cheeks, wrinkles, or liver spots. I’m more concerned that this is the start of the last act, and there are no more dress rehearsals. Once we hit fifty, our failures, as well as our successes, become more 
significant, if only because we know it’s too late to start over. Second chances become rare or non-existent, and moments we used to take for granted start to become moments we may be experiencing for the last time. It’s like being at a casino where everyone is given the same number of chips with which to play. You can play any game you like, and if you keep winning, you get to keep playing. When you first start, it’s not that big of a deal if you squander a few chips, as long as you have an occasional big score. But once you’re down to your last few, you become very careful about how those chips are used. Unless you win big, your time is up. And the odds of winning big, especially at that late stage of the game, are slim. Very slim. So count your chips carefully, and then decide on your next move. Play safe, extending the game as long as you can? Or do you bet it all, hoping for the last big jackpot?
There’s an invisible, thick coating of armor many of us have built up to safeguard us from the ridiculous monsters we fear, or to prevent us from plummeting from that top branch of the tall tree. But that same armor has also held us back. We tend to become so sheltered inside of our protective mechanisms that we eventually miss out on that one chance to skyrocket and become the ultimate version of the person we always hoped we would be. Instead, we find comfort in complacency, where the best we can get is “good enough” or even “just getting by.”
What-ifs are a bitch.
One of the “gifts” I brought back with me after my little other-worldly adventure last year was the understanding of what the phrase “life is short” really means. For the first few months following my release from the hospital, I would annoyingly remind my pals to stop and smell the roses, to not hold grudges, and try not to sweat the small stuff—the 
obvious pieces of advice one would expect to offer following such a harrowing experience. But I failed to grasp onto the deeper and, I think, more important piece of wisdom after having faced and overcome the grand-daddy of all fears: the fear of dying. When the time comes for me to take my final breaths, the last things I want going through my mind are questions that begin with, “What if…” No one wants to be the guy whose story is about roads not traveled, opportunities not taken, and doors not opened.
Granted, shedding that heavy, cumbersome armor means exposing our vulnerable, little underbellies and opening ourselves up to the possibilities we’d rather not face—failure, getting hurt, and being lost. Then suddenly one day, if we’re lucky, we begin to understand why “being old” isn’t necessarily the negative we’ve often been led to believe it is. On the contrary, it can be one of life’s greatest moments. It’s the time to finally say, “Fuck fear. I want to know what’s behind that door,” knowing that it could be the child-devouring road grader or the glorious last chance at realizing our dreams. So which is it? Only one way to find out.
Renowned author and scholar Brené Brown says it this way.
”I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: ‘I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go.’
Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever.
Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through you. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”
Hot damn! So after more than a year of trying to re-enter a world that seemed determine to make that process as difficult as possible, and discovering that my near-death journey did NOT make me invincible regardless of whether or not I had actually been touched by the benevolent forces of the universe, I’m once again recognizing the value of something as simple as putting one foot in front of the other, as I get back to the real world and remember that my days are numbered. No matter how far we think we’ve come, we all still have work to do. Yes, even you. And while we’ll likely never let go of all our fears, at least it’s a start.
So, I need to decide what to do with those few chips I have left. Shall I play slots? Blackjack? A couple rounds of poker? I think I’ll play one of my green chips on the roulette wheel. That’s what…twenty-five bucks, right? I’ll play it safe to start, betting on color. Let’s go with black. Nah, fuck it. On second thought, I’m gonna take a chance. Red 23.
The croupier spins the wheel. The ball drops. And it lands on….