12 - Grace B. Why Me?

 

I have many fears that haunt me and make me tiptoe around my daily life. I’m afraid of the dark, which some may think is childish, but just because many people don’t have it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’m afraid of heights so those grand staircases we hope to walk on better have a handrail. What I’ve noticed about most of my fears is that they all have a solution. When darkness hits turn on a light, luckily for me our technological world implemented a flashlight right in our phones, so that was never an issue. When I’m high up somewhere I tend to grab a handrail or the nearest person and hold on, those who are afraid of heights know that all we simply need is support and stability. But what is the solution when there’s a spider in my room?

I am severely terrified of spiders. Any one that is near me makes my skin crawl and my brain is in fight or flight mode. You know those Halloween props and you step on the button and a spider hops out at you? Yeah, I’m not a fan. I can feel all the sensors in my body telling me to run out the room. One day I was home alone and I had come home from school and I was so tired. I was really looking forward to just passing out on my comfy bed, but little did I know that I had a visitor waiting for me when I walked in. 

I greeted my dog giving her lots of love and I walked up to my room. I open the door and immediately my eyes are drawn to the top left corner of the room. My heart begins to race and I can feel my palms working up a sweat and all I could keep thinking was “Why ME?” Why did it have to make its way to MY room? My sister's room is 2 feet away from mine and she’s off at college. No one would’ve been bothered if it went in there, but no. It chose ME. 

So obviously the best choice was for me to close the door on the spider and sit outside my room. I was completely in the mindset that that spider could have my whole room if he wanted to. So I went to my mom's bed and tried to sleep. And as my eyes got droopy and I was falling to sleep, I began to feel my skin crawl, itching me to wake up. I was paranoid. I let that spider take over MY room, what if he made his way to my moms room for a laugh? Then what would I do. So I decided to face my fear head on. That spider was a goner.

I opened the door to my room once again with confidence and determination to remove him, but once my eyes met this little spider on the top left corner of my room, doubt crept in. He was just there chilling, acting like he owned the place. He was challenging me. Suddenly all that fear went away and I just wanted him gone. I wanted to reclaim MY room. So I ran to my closet, grabbed my black chancla and my inner Latina came out. I launched it across the room and it hit the spider perfectly. I ran over to the crime scene and there the spider was. Dead. I won.

I don’t promote violence of any kind. In fact I held a beautiful funeral for this spider in my bathroom toilet, so I think we made some kind of peace. Sometimes you have to face your fears head on. They might not be as bad as you think. 

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