FEAR ITSELF

There is an episode of Buffy, a Halloween episode, which only means something if you're a HUGE nerd like me, called Fear Itself. While I would LOVE to include the script here, because it's pure genius, I won't. You're welcome. But I highly recommend watching it on Netflix. It's season 4.

 

 

In the episode some frat guys accidentally and unknowingly summon the fear demon Gachnar, who uses your fears to fuel his powers, as they are setting up for their haunted house by painting a weird symbol on the floor from some Wiccan book.

 

 

All these college students who attend the party get trapped in the frat house by the demon they woke up, including our main characters, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer herself, Xander, Willow, and Oz.

 

 

We learn each characters fears as they wind through the spelled house getting separated from one another, because, well, what's scarier than being scared, alone? They think at first it's a ridiculously well planned haunted house party, but their familiarity with the supernatural quickly leads them to figure out something else is going on.

 

 

Anya (how I love thee)

Anya who likes Xander tries to meet him at the party only to find no door, no windows, no way in. She runs to Giles for help, he figures out

what they are facing: Gachnar. Giles and Anya run back to the frat house, Giles with a chainsaw to make a door.

 

 

They all learn and hear or know the main party is upstairs, so they all try running past or through their fears to the attic, hoping they will find a way out from up there.

 

 

They all find their way upstairs and notice the symbol on the floor the guys painted that accidentally summoned the demon. Xander accidentally says his name, Gachnar, which coincidentally summons the demon to appear in corporal form.

 

 

This big swirl of energy and light and darkness begins to overtake the room when all of a sudden out of the cloud of evil Gachnar shows himself in a rage and cry for them to bow down before him.

 

 

Gachnar: Fear Demon

The way the camera showed all this makes the audience believe he is huge and scary, but when it pans out and away, we see that Gachnar is in fact like 3 inches tall!

 

 

After mocking, in bad but funny taste, the fear demon, Buffy kills him by squashing him with her foot.

 

 

They all head back to Giles' apartment to eat candy. While the kids are being kids, Giles is reading from the book about Gachnar. How didn't he know he would be that small?! When suddenly Giles swears in Brittish, and the kids look at him wondering what now...

 

 

 

Giles struggles to tell them that under the terrifying picture of Gachnar in his book it says "Actual size".

 

 

 

Fear itself was 3 inches tall! It doesn't get more profound that that. Well, on Buffy it usually does, but you know what I mean. I love this message after the post below. A great reminder.

 

 

Buffy, right before she squishes Gachnar

 

May we be able to realize the "actual size" of fear itself more and more each day.

 

Xander, Mocking The Fear Demon

 

"Whose a little fear demon?" -Xander

 

 

 

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MY GREATEST FEAR

FEAR

I lied below. Sort of. Only half of the story is in the post below, if not less.

 

Note: You wouldn't believe the fight inside of me right now trying not to lie to all of you or to myself.

 

Yes, in that moment, when I saw that movie, a motherly instinct turned on for the first time in my life. It had flickered before, but those events were nothing compared to the flood gates of unconditional love that overpoured for a family I don't even have yet and might never have.

 

Yes, Stills Disease and coming that close to my own mortality and morality also made me become more empathetic and love more unconditionally than I ever did before I got sick...but there is so much more fear here than the thought of potentialy hurting others.

 

I mean, ok, so yes, I hate hurting people's feelings. I love to be love and that fuels my need to be kind. I almost need to be liked--I was raised to be a peacemaker and a caregiver, and despite my physical setbacks I like to think I still am when I can be. I did choose sports medicine after all, a health care field, which tends to scream that I take care of others better than I take care of myself--but just like everyone else, I still look out for my well being just as much as the rest of you, if not more, because of what I've been through, because of Stills--because of what I've lost.

 

I had some walls and fences and traps around me before I got sick, but they were mainly to stop someone from slowing me down on my way to my "perfect plan" for my future. But when I lost every part of that plan, and when friends and family didn't know how to deal with me going through a very deep and dark depression, it felt like I was losing everything. And I mean everything!

 

Within just two very short years I truly thought I had lost everything and everyone. I wholeheartedly, but falsely, believed there was nothing left to lose and I thought there would never be a worse feeling than that--I couldn't...I don't even want to tell you how it gets worse, because...because it hurts that much.

 

My last therapy session could explain it all to you, and all the ones that were so similar to it. All those kleenex I go through, how I feel I am always the ONLY one who goes back to the waiting room crying hoping I don't have snot all over my face. How my therapist and I are stuck on this same subject and I swear, she is good and kind and caring and is starting to really understand me, but I don't think she can fix this fear...I even started reading The Tibetan Book and Living And Dying again because the impermanence of all this--Son of Jor-El I hate that word--all this that used to feel like nothing, it's truly and honestly my greatest fear.

 

Anyone else suddenly feeling nauseous and anxious and shaky? Or is it just me for telling the entire Internet my greatest fear?

Rumi says that where there is ruin, there is hope for burried treasure.

Anne Lamott talks of "all that we lose, yet all that remains".

Man I was drowning back then, when I thought I truly had nothing left to lose!

 

And now?! Now, the thing I'm most afraid of, is all that I have left to lose!

 

 

FOR ALL THAT IT'S WORTH, IS IT WORTH IT?

Every once in a while I'm brave, or stupid, enough to look into my future. Usually just imagining what tomorrow holds is scary enough, but at certain hours in the night as I drown in silence, or mom's snoring, I can't help but go there sometimes...and then there are these seemingly hand picked messages from God and/or the Devil, or both, that make me go there...I feel the anxiety boiling in my chest and stomach just thinking about it.

 

When I was young, naive, and foolishly and endlessly hopeful, like I thought the world or God owed me happiness, I loved looking into the future. It fueled me to keep going, keep fighting, keep striving for more of what I thought just might be the perfect life. But when you get an autoimmune disease and allow for time to finally accept what that may actually mean, well, let's just say you want to slow everything down--or end it now. And that's the nicest way I can say it.

 

The truth is, I am usually deathly afraid of what even an hour from now may hold for me, almost literally, but not quite, let alone tomorrow. And I've heard some horror stories about my disease and others like it. But none of them gutted me like the ones told by mothers. Moms who couldn't take care of their kids like they wanted to or should. Mothers whose husbands didn't or couldn't step it up. Moms who passed far too early and left their families all alone.

 

I remember in college, I was watching a movie maybe a little over a year after being diagnosed with Stills in which the mom was dying. Normally I mourned those movies because I love my mom more than anything else, and losing her would leave me heartless and hopeless and more alone than I can even imagine feeling. It's an emptiness there are no words for. But this time, at the age of 19, it suddenly was different, and at first I had no idea why.

 

I never really grew up wanting a family. I wanted a dream. A dream job. To play sports or be an athletic trainer. Both would require a lot of hours and would make finding a husband even harder considering he would have to be the stay at home parent. So, I was realistic, and really only put the job first, and husband on the backburner, and children on the back back back burner, if you know what I mean. So when I watched this movie and felt something different, some sort of nastalgic loss that wasn't for my mother, I honestly couldn't figure out what that sadness was until the very end of the movie. I was sitting there sobbing and clenching my fists near my heart to symbolically close the open wound in my chest, but I did not know why--what for exactly, until the near end of the film. And it surprised me, which somehow made it hurt more...

 

Without sports or Athetic Training and as family and friends abandoned me--more like I was pulling away and even pushing them away and they were too shocked to realize that what I needed them to do was tear down my walls and chase me down no matter how hard I fought it--I realized the depth of my loneliness. I began to want someone who would be there, and I mean be there. Who would always try to somehow be there even more. Not just because he loved me, but because that was who he was. Someone who somehow believed all that he was doing and all the love he was giving, was, well, never enough. (Says the girl whose first loves were Christ and Superman. I didn't set the bar high did I?) I wanted the man only God could miraculously orchestrate to find me, and yet, I didn't.

 

This movie made me realize a possible future of mine: an early death. Maybe mid fifties...and as I watched this mother and this family deal with her final days, I realized what that really meant. It meant leaving them all behind without her. Her husband. Her kids. Her grandchildren. Her friends. It would hurt them far more than it would hurt her, and that is what began to scare me the most. I both wanted what she had, an amazing and big and loving family--disfunction and all--and I also was afraid to do to this possible family what she did to hers. And it was as if in that moment I became afraid of love. Of hurting those I might love, might find, might have in my life. I was longing of true love, a real family, and afraid of it all at the same time--at 19. And I still am.

 

It never seems like life is anything like the movies, often not even the indie movies that are supposed to capture real life more accurately and honestly. They still have the same elements as the rest: a character who wants something and overcomes conflict TO GET IT. While in real life, spouses usually can't handle the other being sick, at all. They either create an unhappy marriage, or leave. I heard it a hundred times from others with stills disease: their spouse or significant other either couldn't deal, or they left, and the same with thier friends and family...

 

And yet, I've seen A Walk To Remember and other movies like it, where love, true unconditional love can truly conquer all, and somewhere deep inside, I feel the spark of that truth, flickering, trying to stay lit in my heart, alive...and I like that feeling. It feels like...it feels like God Himself...

 

I'm smiling now, as I see the flip side to all this dreary woe is me talk. I see hope. I really do. When I'm brave enough I see a future that God smiles upon. I see a man of God who somehow cares enough to tear down enough of my walls to get to know me, the real me, and by the grace of God loves me anyway...I see him doing all he can to show me he loves me, to each day vow to remake me believe I am lovable, no matter what. A man who does all that and more and still wonders if it is ever enough because that's how extraordinary he believes me to be...

 

And then the imp of the perverse creeps in and I think I'm crazy for believing in fairy tales...

 

I guess only time will tell, as long as I'm brave enough to keep searching.

 

 

 

Until then, if you want, check out what prompted this post and made me brave enough not just to look ahead, but to look ahead with hope:

 

 

 

EVER ENOUGH by A Rocket To The Moon (lyrics):

 

No I’m never gonna leave you darling

No I’m never gonna go regardless

Everything inside of me, is living in your heartbeat

Even when all the lights are fading

Even then, if your hope was shaking

I’m here holding on

Chorus:

I will always be yours forever and more

Through the push and the pull

I still drown in your love

And drink ’til I’m drunk

And all that I’ve done, is it ever enough?

I’m hanging on a line here baby

I need more than ifs and maybes

We’ll come down from the highest heights

Still searching for the reason why

And now I know what it’s like

Reaching from the other side

After all that I’ve done

Chorus:

I will always be yours forever and more

Through the push and the pull

I still drown in your love

And drink ’til I’m drunk

And all that I’ve done, is it ever enough?

For all that it’s worth, is it worth it?

Cause it’s more than my heart you're deserting

For all that it’s worth, is it worth it?

How do we know without searching?

I will write you this song to get back what’s ours

Would that be enough?

Chorus:

I will always be yours forever and more

Through the push and the pull

I still drown in your love

And drink ’til I’m drunk

And all that I’ve done, is it ever enough?

For all that it’s worth, is it worth it?

Is it ever enough?

How could we know without searching?

Is it ever enough?

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FREEWAY (FROM POTSC)

 

FREEWAY TEASER TRAILER from PEOPLE OF THE SECOND CHANCE on Vimeo.

 

 

People of the Second Chance (POTSC): Who And What They Are

 

POTSC are group of people I wish I had found years ago. They've reshaped my view of the world and have taught me how to give, accept, and cultivate grace. To give everyone a second chance. And they mean everyone. No one is rejected here. Only loved.

 

They know that labels lie. They know you aren't what you've done; you are what you've yet to do. Each day is a new chance, for love, for hope, for acceptance, for grace, to try again.

 

Whether you think you have your life together or whether you've incorrectly and unjustly been beaten down by this world and its people to believe you are nothing and are worth nothing and deserve nothing, these people will love you unconditionally, they will encourage you, uplift you, be there for you, and they will immediately make you feel like family.

 

They are the family and friends and love you've been longing for your entire life. They are the most incredible and radically amazing and giving and loving and selfless people I've ever discovered and I hope you are able to find the time and way into their family, our family. We are the People Of The Second Chance. Please come join us.

 

 

POTSC: What They Are Doing

 

Their first effort, as far as I'm aware of, was Gracenomics, and I've been transformed onto a path of grace ever since, or at least I've been trying.

 

Freeway is their latest effort to spread Truth to all people. The truth that love and grace and hope and freedom and friendship and second chances are real. And not only are they real, but they are there, for you, no matter who you were or what you've done: The sun has risen, today is a new day, with a new path, a freeway, if you will, if you will allow it to be shared with you. I recommend checking POTSC and FREEWAY out as soon as you can. I mean, who doesn't want what they have to offer? And who doesn't need what they have to offer? Who doesn't want to be a part of this family?

 

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