What are my fears? I get asked that question quite often actually. What makes my heart rate rise like the lava from Mt. Vesuvius, enclosing Pompeii in an eternal prison? The single most thing that creates goose bumps, which gradually, and slyly inch its way up my spine. When all I can think about is the here and now and all else is blinded by immense emotional pain, triggered by something so small in a brain the size of a fist.

For some it’s heights. Feeling your stomach coil and pound as you await your seemingly impending doom. Dropping 500 feet off a cliff, will do it for some, yet not for me. I know that it’s an improbable fear, so therefore I do not fear it.


For others it’s the dark; the unknown. What lies there terrifies you, paralyzes you, until you are no longer human; a soul in a paralyzed body. The silence and trepidation of the dark will do it for some, but not for me. I know that those monsters and demons that haunted my dreams as a child, do not exist, well for most of us anyway. The only monsters that frighten me are very existent.

For some it’s death that frightens them the most; oblivion. The fear that one day none of us will be here. No one will be here to remember us. No one will commit to memory our short comings or achievements. No one will remember all the legendary stars of Hollywood or the leaders of the free world; no one will be alive to witness the fall of civilization. I do not fear that much either. I believe that all grand things must come to an end and there is no reason to fear it. Fearing death is naive and intolerable, for it is inevitable. I will not allow the fear of death to control me, for that is not what I am on this world to do. I can not fear the inevitable.

Some of us fear war. We fear the constant nagging feeling that sons, brothers, husbands, and lovers will be whisked away to fight for a nation that cares naught for them or their families. The fear that everything will erupt in smoke and fire and ashes. Some fear that nuclear warfare will turn this glorious planet into a barren wasteland. We can not fear war, for we are human. Humans quarrel and banter and war is foreseeable as well. I despise war, but I can not fear it.

Yet I do have a fear. I possess a fear so ferocious and appalling, it’s death-defying. I fear one thing most of all; Regret. If there is one thing that I dread to leave this planet feeling, it’s regret. I fear not loving, or being loved. I fear I shall not succeed in a world of male dominance. I fear that regret, and the atrociousness of regret will consume me in its fiery and hellish pits. Regret is my Achilles Heel. It is the one thing that can bring upon my downfall. I shall not allow it to impede me. I can not allow it to define me, for if it does, everything will have been for naught. Everything I have strived for. Everything. I will have no regrets.