Fear
Howard and I have a very important rule for our marriage. Any time we are afraid to tell the other about something, that something must be told. The fear of telling communicates that the topic has emotional freight which must be examined together. Most of the time we’ll think it all through in advance before bringing the subject up, perhaps even planning the wording we’ll use, but we find a good time and talk the thing over. An example: Suppose Howard and I have agreed to diet together, but I bake cookies on his night out and eat them all up. Afterward I realize that in addition to breaking my diet, I also broke a bargain with Howard that we would diet together. I am afraid to tell Howard about the cookies, but I have to do it. Not telling in this context may seem minor, but it sets a pattern of concealment and deceit which could lead to some very unpleasant places indeed. So I pick a quiet time when Howard and I are both ready to talk and I tell him about the cookies and about feeling awful because I hid the cookies from him. Then Howard tells me it is all okay and he doesn’t care that I made cookies. And we are right with each other again. No secrets.
I love this rule. It is the core of why our marriage continues to be strong despite everything. But even good things can cause occasional complications. A pile of unpleasant stresses happened last week. They were stressful for Howard and for me. Because I love Howard I did not want my emotional reactions to the stresses to cause him more stress. There was and is a whole pile of things that I am afraid about. But if I was conscious of being afraid of them, I would have to talk about them with Howard and potentially add to his list of stresses. So I hid my fears deep inside my brain, so deep that I didn’t know they were there. Unfortunately the fears were like a geyser. I had to exert constant effort to keep those fears suppressed. The result was that I spent 4 days in a near constant anxiety state. My heart raced and sometimes even palpitated. I felt shaky. I felt scared with no reason I could see for the fear. And I was cold. All of this gave me brand new fears for my health and worries that I’d developed an anxiety disorder which would interfere with all the things I need to be doing.
I couldn’t keep it up. Geysers of emotion will not be denied forever. I’ve now talked with Howard about the biggest pieces and will continue to talk about the littler things as I realize what they are.
Biggest fear: We’ve been living on the cartooning income for a year now. It is a miracle that we can make a living this way. I love this life. I am afraid that this life was a loan rather than a gift. I’m afraid that we won’t sell enough books to cover the next six months of expenses. I’m afraid that we will fail and will thus let down all the people who have found hope in our success. That last is a big one. It has made me so happy to be a cause for hope because some people have so little. It hurts to think we might be cause for someone to despair.
Biggest grief: I’m sad for the chunk of money which will never arrive. I’m frightened by the debt holes that we have to fill. I’m frightened by the further dent that will be made paying for the printing of this next book. I am a financial squirrel and it drives me crazy that I have so few resources in hand to cover pending expenses. We have lots of assets to borrow against, but I don’t want to borrow at all. I want to have cash with which to pay bills.
Biggest despair: Over the last week or so, I have spent lots of time wondering why I bother to write. I found myself despairing that my writing was worth anything. The despair made no sense because nothing about my writing has changed since last week when it all felt fine. Then I realized that the advent of the financial crisis makes me want to scramble to find money where ever I can. At this point my writing can not bring in any money. I’ve sold the story that was ready to go. All the other writing is still in process. My writing could not help me solve the current financial crisis so I was subconsciously wondering whether it had value at all.
Other stuff:
The sale of the first Schlock book moved us from a place where we had to pinch every penny into a place where I could occasionally buy things new. I truly did enjoy the challenge of doing things like providing Christmas for less than $100. I enjoyed going to garage sales and keeping track of food inventories. But it was a lot of work and time. This week I found myself staring at needing to do the same sorts of scrimping, only I no longer have the time. Back then my job was to make the money last. Now I’m also doing book layout, and shipping, and writing. I’d much rather keep these new things than go back to the scrimping. I’m afraid that I’ll have to go back.
I remember how stressful pre-orders and book shipping were the last two times I did it. I’m afraid of the incoming stress.
I’m afraid that I won’t be able to do the layout that will need to be done for the book after this one.
I am so afraid of so many things and I can’t seem to stop. I want to stop, because these fears aren’t useful. They keep getting in my way and tripping me when I want to run and solve problems. And that’s why I was suppressing. I wanted to just get things done and fill the financial holes. Once the holes were filled then I’ve removed the causes for fear. Problem solved. Only apparently I’m not allowed to skip the step of actually feeling afraid and admitting it.