Last week, my friend took me to a beautiful place we’d gone to over the years. It’s a short hike up to a ledge that looks out over a spectacular vista of deciduous trees in various stages of fall colors.
Image: Nicholas_T
The ledge, a rocky outgrowth, has many natural places to sit but my friend wanted to sit on “the couch,” as we always do, a smooth indentation in the rock the size and shape of a loveseat, closest to the edge of a sheer drop.
“That’s OK. I’ll stand here,” I called down from the forest above the ledge. “I can see everything. It’s beautiful.”
She helpfully pointed out the easiest way down, as if that was my problem.
“No! I’m not going down there!” I said, almost yelling.
I could tell she was disappointed. There are photos of me on that ledge, even selfies we took on “the couch,” smiling as if we are on a date in the front seat of a '50s car. There are photos of my kids down there, my friend reminds me. Really? I let my kids stand so close to death? Was I crazy?
What has happened to me? I used to be adventurous and fearless; an immortal 20-something with the romantic's idea that I would live fast and not make it to 30. Maybe getting into cars with strangers was not the best idea, nor taking shortcuts through dark alleys, nor flying to Europe to live forever with $300 and everything I owned (which did not include winter boots or a coat), but I never worried about what might happen next.
Basically, I come by worrying culturally. I grew up in a Jewish family, surrounded by a diaspora of Jews who schlepped from the east coast to the west to populate the San Fernando Valley and complain about the smog. I went to a public high school that was as full of Jewish teachers and students as a Yeshiva. And then in my 20s, I moved to New York City. Nuff said.
When I was a young risk-taker, although I
didn’t worry about things I should have, like “Do my armpits smell after gym class?” or “Am I wearing white pants at a bad time of the month?” I fretted about crazy things like, “If I am taken prisoner, what will I do if they take my glasses?”
Then for many years, my worrying sort of plateaued until it crashed up against my fear of mortality. I extend that to loved ones, too. Will ISIS destroy Bushwick, where my son lives? Will someone follow my daughter into her building?
It’s endless. I was reading about a whale watching trip in, of all places, New York City (in the Atlantic Ocean off Queens). My first thought was, “I would never do that. A whale could tip over the whole boat.” And this is from someone who once scuba dived in the Mediterranean with sharks and many-toothed moray eels.
I’m up-to-date on all the tests a person can do to their aging body: colonoscopy, endoscopy, stress test, bone density, cholesterol, as well as visits to the skin doctor, gynecologist, dentist, eye doctor. I get a yearly physical. Everything seems fine or better, and still, in the back of my mind, I think I’ll be climbing the Stairmaster one minute and dead on the gym floor the next.
So I’ve decided I will try to summon the spirit of my younger self. The expansiveness that comes from thinking the world is your oyster. After all, I’ve continued being alive despite the crazy behavior of my youth. I’m going for a walk.
Originally published on Purple Clover
http://www.blogher.com/i-used-be-fearless-what-happened
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