The writer's blog

I know a lot about fear.  
Fear has shot me,  held me down, tied me up, blindfolded me, slapped me around and shoved handfuls of sand into my mouth.   Fear has dug a pit, thrown me in and poured concrete over the top of me.  
Fear has looped horrendous scenarios of all the terrible things that can happen to all the people that I love and projected them directly into my brain.  
Fear has told me often to sit down and shut the fuck up and that NO ONE is interested in anything I say.  

Lately I have faced some truly horrific fears.  My youngest son went to NYC on his own to study music, which was probably the most frightening thing I've ever had to face.  And its not like my other children havn't traveled all over the world.  But this was my baby and in my heart and mind he is only 8 years old, wide eyed and innocent, naive and vulnerable (when in reality he is a 21 year old man and none of the above.)
 

I struggled with fear for the months, weeks then days before he left, letting it out in damaging ways like over-reacting to absolutely everything.  I fretted, freaked out, and threw tantrums.  
After he left I couldn't sleep and was paralysed by fear of everything and hovered over the facebooks viewing his bright green on line dot as his living beating heart.
 It was AWFUL.
Then he didn't die, (knock on wood he's still there)  He moved into a nice space, got friends, and a girlfriend.  He posted pics of yummy food and strange arse surreal artworks.  
He is okay.  
He was having a good time.
As time passed I started letting go of the fear until there was hardly any left, except the normal stuff that I felt when he'd walk down to the dairy at dusk in Otaki.  NYC became a grey shadow in the background of my lovely son and the city and all it's connotations eventually disappeared. Just leaving my son, there, having his experience, and me, delighting in that fact.

Then a month ago, my daughter told me she is walking the length of New Zealand on her own.  The fear cycloned back into being and all I could see was all the awful things that could happen to her in the middle of the bush BY HERSELF.  

BUT this time, most of that happened on the inside and the only thing that came out was, 'awesome, that's amazing' and then I just tried to help her get it all going.  
I knew my fears weren't going to help her in any way at all.  My fear was more likely to make it even more anxiety ridden than it already was for her and make her journey harder.  
My fear is mine, so I can keep it, where it belongs, inside me.

I don't have any philosophies about parenting.  Its hard, and it seems to go on forever but what I do know is what NOT to do.  The big one is DON'T INFLICT YOUR FEARS ON YOUR KIDS...and if you do...TELL THEM WHY YOU ARE BEING SO FECKING CRAZY.

On Saturday, 17 December, is was my husband Scotty and my daughter Megan's birthday.  We had a party for them combining it with Christmas, as the kids were all off doing their own thing.