Clowns riding tiny bicycles

Spiders.  Heights.  Commitment. Darkness.  Or perhaps a clown slowly riding a tiny bicycle down an otherwise abandoned dirt road in rural Colorado on a still October evening.  
What gets your fear meter rising?

A recent poll found the fear of public speaking to surpass death.  One comedian joked; "At a funeral these people would rather be in the casket then be giving the eulogy."
And for some the most fear inspiring of days is the first of seventh grade.  Suddenly this whole world of adults, or at least adults as we view them, becomes somewhat accessible, though radically distorted.

Few 12 year old kids on the verge of the most awkward stages of puberty are comfortable in their own skin.  I was no exception. 

On top of the usual, I homeschooled for my first year of Junior High.  Thus something simple like using a locker, which all my classmates had become experts at in the previous year.  For me was yet another daunting unknown.
My fear, as is the case with most, revolved around the unknown. Kids change drastically year after year.  I had missed a year.  What did it take to be cool these days?  What had I missed? As much as I wanted, even at 12, to be a rebel who didn't care what anyone thought.  It all basically came down to one question.  Will the other kids like me? Don't tell me being a grown up is hard, this anxiety was overwhelming.

I do not remember getting a ride to school or walking through the front doors of the school, or even walking into that first class.  But I do remember the feeling of that hard, uncomfortable desk.  And the panic that overcame me, when the teacher informed us we'd need to pick locker partners.  Locker partners!?!  But I was in a roomful of strangers who all seemed to be best friends with each other.

It wasn't always easy, it was lonely even painful at times, but you know what, I did find someone to share a locker with.  And one foot in front of the other, comparable to scaling Everest I'm sure, I made it through the seventh grade.

In a 2005 Gallup poll of children 13 to 15 and various polls of different adult demographics, 2 fears continually show up.  Spiders and the fear of failure.  There is one key difference, with the adults it is the fear of failure, with the teenage poll it was the fear of being a failure.  At that fragile age it seems every endeavor is out to possibly define you as a person.
Why are we so afraid of failing?  How many times would we have to fail before we are officially labeled a failure?  Who judges what it means to fail?  I don't have the answers, we each find our own, I muse.
Fear can be useful.  If your climbing a  mountain, for example, a proper fear and respect can keep you safe and alive.  But fear can also be paralyzing.  And that is where it is a fantastic enemy.

I decided to write about fear for my opening article because this blog for me, writing down the voice in my head, is a most terrifying prospect.  It's still the first day of 7th grade, and I'm left to wonder; will the other kids like it?  Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote "Always do what you are afraid to do".  So here it goes . . .