So I guess I don't know what would surprise people about me as I think I have a fair few people who know me very well, but here goes.
I think something that would surprise people is that I wish I was less cautious.
Now being cautious isn't a bad thing. It has kept me pretty safe overall in my life, but I will say that I sometimes envy those who can get a rush of adrenaline and not think they're having a panic attack, the kind of people who look at a roller coaster and think "what fun" instead of "fuck no," the kind of people with epic travel stories of swimming with sharks or snowboarding down a real mountain.
I often feel like I missed out on a lot of experiences in life (at the tender old age of 30). What have I missed by being too cautious? What wild nights of feeling alive have I sat out on? What heart-pumping experiences has my body never felt? What if I had taken up offers for a good time from men? What if I had asked my friend who went hang gliding if I could join? What if on Physics Day I had actually ridden the giant drop (or whatever it was called)? What core memories would I have if I had been a little less cautious? Who would those core memories make me?
I think being cautious and measured is a part of who I am. I'm a planner and I like that about myself. But that doesn't mean that I couldn't be a planner and more of a risk-taker. Surely a lot of risk-taking activities requrie planning? Though I doubt that's what people find fun about them (maybe I'm wrong though, who knows?). So what would it mean to be a little less cautious?
I know that being less cautious seems like something within my control, but it doesn't feel that way. It's hard to do something that your brain screams at you is a bad idea or even just a little too risky of one. True, I could choose to do something I thought of as a bad idea but then I wouldn't really be being true to myself and I probably wouldn't have a good time doing it because I would just be thinking the whole time about how it was a bad idea.
I do take some risks in my own ways. I think putting yourself out there for dating (which I'm trying to do) is taking a risk. It's hard to put yourself out there (or at least it feels that way to me, but, again, I'm the cautious type) and facing rejection over and over again can wear you down. I also do things like apply to jobs I'm not always qualified for (hey it's how I got my first job at the Press). These though are all measured risks I take and generally have few realisitc downsides.
I wonder what it would feel like to be able to do something like sky dive without saying it would literally take a gun to my child's head to get me to do it (that's honestly how I feel). What would it be like to to just, literally, take the leap?
Sometimes I wonder if my cautious nature comes from a lack of trust. Some of my fear of roller coasters and things like skydiving is that I'd have to just trust that I'd be okay. Trust that those buckles and harness will keep me safe, trust that the people guiding me actually know what they're doing, trust that everything will work properly and I won't end up as some tragic story on the news. I don't know where this fear of not being okay comes from other than my anxiety, but where does my anxiety come from? From going to Al-Anon (ask me about it sometime) meetings, I know that having an alcoholic parent can often instill anxiety in someone and I also know there is a genetic component to anxiety and I certainly have relatives who have struggled with it.
In the end, I'm not necessarily upset that I'm cautious, I just wish I could safely be a little less cautious (boy that sounds a bit like an oxymoron, huh?). I wish I could take the leaps needed to have incredible experiences that people ooh and ahh over and have stories to contribute when people are sharing about their crazed youth. I sometimes feel boring because I don't have stories like that. My stories can be funny or tragic or, I hope, insightful, but they're rarely jaw-dropping or amazing.
Who knows though? Maybe one day I will take a crazy risk and feel free enough to take a leap.
(Prompt by Eleanor Pratt)
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