The Only Thing We Have to Fear...

I am afaid of the water - this is something that I have been working on overcoming. Just to clarify, I'm not afraid of running water, I am afraid of standing water, water that has the ability to close in over my head and drown me. That is that kind of water that I am afraid of.
The only time I can remember being close to actual, uncontrollable panic was a few years ago when I fell off a jet ski and into unfathomable depths of Bear Lake (ok, I'm sure it's fathomable, but at the time it may as well have been the middle of the Pacific). Feeling myself losing control was one of the worst things I have ever experienced. Even with a life jacket on it felt as if something was pushing me down and intended to hold me under. Fortunately, the feeling didn't last long, but it lasted long enough.
As I said, I have been working on overcoming this fear. Telling myself, 'it's only water, it's only water, it's only water,' again and again to try and quell the panic rising through my stomach, to my chest, and into my throat. I haven't managed to will myself into water that is over my head without restraining my body with the overactivity of my brain, but I imagine I shall get there someday. Besides, I have other, more terrifying things to be afraid of - like the dark. That, I am afraid, there is no cure for. That is a fear that I will never overcome.

(In)visible

I have discovered that it is entirely possible for a person to be invisible. I feel this way sometimes. Not like people can't see me, I take up space, so it's obvious that I'm there, but invisible as if I have faded into the background. Whenever I'm with people, because I'm often afraid to talk and bring myself to everyone's attention, I can feel myself disappearing.
Turning into a desperate shadow, sometimes someone will turn, smile, maybe ask a question that requires a one word answer. Then the colors start to fill back in, the light catches the shiny emptiness of my eyes, and someone can see me for the briefest of moments.
But there are better, more interesting people to focus on. They shine like flares on a dark highway, and all eyes are drawn toward them. I am the darkness, the slight gloom that must be looked through to find the source of the blinding, beautiful light.
I am also drawn to the beacons, but hover on the edge, slowly changing into seven shades of grey. Then slowly losing solidity as people begin to walk through me, I'm brushing their skin as if I were a sticky spider's web that they couldn't see until it was too late. Too late to move aside and avoid tearing apart a web so beautiful, a thing so strange, a creation worthy of study. A web that has a thousand intricacies; lines, curves, the lightest of grips on the solid world around it.
They tear me apart and then brush me aside, leaving pieces of me floating down to the ground, where they are stepped on and forgotten. Easy to forget because they are nearly invisible.