Blogtober14: my biggest fear

okay, so aside from the recurring visions i’m having about somehow contracting Ebola while Spy is in Europe and then having to be separated from Miss Girl until he can get here and how totally. effing. traumatic. the whole thing would be, i’m not afraid of that much stuff. and just so you know, i’m completely aware that the Ebola thing is a completely crazy thought and i’m not even sure why it popped into my head. but i am carrying extra hand sanitizer. . . . i’m in a good place with big life stuff like getting married, having kids and having a good career. so any of the worries i might have had about that stuff when i was younger are kind of off the table.

but the one thing i am really, really afraid of is heights. it seems to be getting worse with age and is honestly debilitating at times. just getting higher than 2 or 3 stories is enough to start light hyperventilation. seriously. considering that my husband would live in the 30th floor of a highrise if given his druthers and is more of a mountain guy than a beach guy, i definitely have my work cut out for me in this department. thankfully, he’s starting to take me more seriously when i tell him i’m freaking out and he doesn’t push me to reach the tippy top of anything like he used to. but hell, even the South Terminal main escalator at Hartsfield scares the crap out of me, so there’s only so much he can do. the pics above are from a few of my scariest moments in the past several years.

Cape Point, South Africa — 2009

“Rugged rocks and sheer cliffs towering more than 200 metres above the sea . . .” that pretty much says it all. i don’t even know how high 200 metres is, but it’s for sure at least 150 meters above sea level higher than i’m cool with. i could only go about halfway up before i was looking for the cart peddling Xanax. hint, it doesn’t exist. my dear friend and hostess accompanied Spy to the top where they took pictures of their feet dangling over the edge that i can’t even look at. hell, i’m starting to get a little short of breath just thinking about those images . . . one of the most gorgeous places i’ve been in this world, but just not my cup of tea.

SkyView, Atlanta, Georgia — 2013

“Towering nearly 20 stories above Centennial Park . . .” yeah, again. not my thing. i did the London one in like ’05 and probably had similar feelings. but i have conveniently blocked out those details for the sake of remembering an amazing Christmas holiday. we did this one with friends in town last summer. my 11th story office downtown is plenty high enough to see pretty much all the same the sights — from all 4 angles, thankyouverymuch. totally not down with the swinging, glass encased 4×6 container you ride in for this thing. those things could obviously pop off and crash to the ground at any given moment, right?

Gatlinburg, Tennessee — 2014

the Ober Gatlinburg Aerial Tramway is the devil. it gets you in between 2 places you really want to be (down the mountain and up the mountain), but at a high, high cost: 2 miles of sheer swinging, glass encased torture. okay, it doesn’t really swing that much. but flying high above the treetops with a really breathtaking (no, i mean literally, i started hyperventilating again) view of here to the mountain-rich horizon is for the birds. they can have the air up there. i’m glad i made it, but not sure that needs to be a repeat!

what scares the crap out of you?