Wednesday, August 15, 2007

N is for Nervous.

No Photo

I couldn't think of anything to photograph for today's theme, so I whipped up this little graphic because I couldn't expect you to read with no imagery. How boring would that be?



One might call me a Nervous Nellie.

I'm a worrier. I admit it.

Things that make me nervous include:

• Being a passenger in cars. I have no control over what the driver will do. I am a handle grabber. I pump the invisible brake and brace myself for collision. This is why I always opt for the back seat when there are 3 people in the car. Even if my husband is driving. I see him everyday. I don't need to sit next to him the car too. This is also why I read in the car. Luckily I don't get car sick.

• Being alone in a home by myself. When Mike moved here for the new job and I stayed up north in our condo, I locked myself in our bedroom and had headphones on every night. If I hadn't I would have been up all night worrying.

• That being said, even being the last one up in a full house late at night, makes me nervous. I have an overactive imagination. Every creak makes me think people are creeping around, trying to attack me.

• Severe thunderstorms. Even more so now that we've moved closer to Tornado Alley. I used to loved thunderstorms. Even though I used to have very vivid tornado dreams. I do not look forward to our first big storm down here.

• When I was younger, I was super paranoid about child predators and kidnappers. I attribute these to two separate television show episodes. Mr Belvedere episode when Wesley was touched inappropriately by a camp leader at summer camp, and Diff'rent Strokes episode where the little blond boy/son was kidnapped from a convenience store. The kidnap episode especially freaked me out and I never watched the show again.

• In elementary school, we watched filmstrips about how the sun was going to explode. Now I know that's part of the life cycle of a star, but when I was in first grade I thought it was going to happen in my lifetime. I was convinced that my grandchildren would be incinerated by the sun. This worried me for all of first grade, and occasionally still pops into my head, all these years later.

It's funny, when it comes down to really listing things, I freeze. I know a ton of things make me nervous, but I can't for the life of me think of more. Oh well, I think the ones I've shared are pretty telling. If I think of any more, I'll let you know.



1 comment:

Jenna Z said...

Our similarities continue! Ask anyone, I am a worrier. And a fraidy cat. I won't go in the basement after dark, I'm scared of the flushing sound toilets make (especially if I'm alone in a public restroom and it's one of those POWERFUL toilets), fireworks make me extremely nervous (it's FIRE, raining down on you!). When I was a kid we had a puppet show come to school about inappropriate touching and I became leary of ANYone touching me at all. I was super paranoid about drugs and that somehow someone might inject me with something just to get me hooked on it. (Again, I'm sure this was because of all those filmstrips with terrible pictures of filthy drug paraphernalia and strung-out people on dirty houses). And I thought the older kids in he back of the bus could somehow hear my thoughts through a device they planted in my seat. Which might also somehow contain a hypodermic of heroin. I had a long bus ride, I guess I had a lot of time to think about these things. Now my nervousness is mainly work-related or on some way related to overthinking craft projects/dog training/neighbor relations.