some reflections

recently i was asked this question on my formspring..."what's your biggest phobia?" i answered it and gave no further thought at the time, but when i re-read that tonight i felt like my answer would be shocking to have read 10 years ago.

my response to this was..."it's a three way tie. restraint, abandonment, and men.

restraint - i don't like being held down. if it's playful then ok but if someone is holding me down or pinning any part of me i freak out.

abandonment - if i'm abandoned i tend to have severe panic attacks and generally lose track of life for a while.

men - i've had some moments in life where i have now become irrationally timid around men i don't know."

now to me, this is completely normal. but what would i have thought of that when i was 9? back when phobias were things like spiders, the dark, monsters. things that could be chased away with a newspaper or by just turning on the lights. how would i have reacted knowing that in the future i would be deeply afraid of things that can't be fixed easily?

it seems that as i get older things change drastically without me realizing it. i went from never wanting to leave home to moving into a single apartment and being thrilled about it in a matter of a few years. is it just my generation that has brought on such immensely quick changes? i don't remember my mother saying that she shifted from one extreme to another that quickly. but maybe that's the thing, you can't know and understand how fragile truths are until you experience a change so dramatic that you almost get whiplash by the time you realize it. while it's scary to see some changes in myself, i'm so glad that i can recognize just how much i've grown up, and can see just how far i have yet to go.