Stage Fright; or, The Show Must Go On

Want to know the face of fear? Easy: my face when I first saw this GIF. I hate deep water. I'm not a confident swimmer, and I have a great fear of the ocean. So I have to wonder - what does it take to make a leap like that? No, seriously, I'd like to know. At the moment, I feel like it's a combination of faith, trust, and pixie dust. When the turning point comes, I don't have any of these things; I panic. Unsurprising really, given that a) I don't think many people would face a scenario like this with confidence, and b) that's basically the definition of panic.

In case you haven't realised yet, I'm using the GIF as a metaphor for leaps of faith or life-changing decisions. 'Yeah, I get that,' you say, 'but what's your point?' Well, slightly annoyed reader of mine, my point is that (on what seems now to have been a whim), I created a life-changer for myself: on May 1st, I will be leaving for Canada, spending up to a year there. Me, myself, and I. Going solo. Alone.

Up until a few days ago, I thought it was going to be a grand old adventure - just think of all the moose (Mooses? Meese?) I'd see! And some beavers, too. Maybe. Not really fussed about the beavers, to be honest. But I realised this morning that D-Day is coming up fast. Five and a half weeks, or forty days, to be more precise. Forty days?! A lot can change in forty days! The world was flooded and de-flooded in that time! And other notable things lasting forty days have also happened, I'm sure. I'll bet they're less exciting than the world flooding though, am I right?

Needless to say, panic has successfully installed itself within me like a systems update. It's rooted itself within the hard drive, and is subtly affecting the usability, making everything slightly unfamiliar and a bit of a pain to use. Sure, I function, but everything's tinged with a haze of mild annoyance now.

In a wild attempt to combat (read: ignore and distract from) my ever-present new companion, I turned to tarot card reading. Makes perfect sense, I know. A little while ago I bought some zombie tarot cards. No, I don't know the first thing about doing tarot readings, nor do I even really believe in it, but the artwork on the cards was really cool. And come on, it's zombies.

Sadly the cards did little to alleviate my fears. Apparently I'll be struck by sorrow and tragedy in the near future, which will be followed by my inevitable decline and demise, thanks to my own self-destruction through excess. And I'm only exaggerating slightly. Suffice it to say, it's not looking pretty. I even tried doing readings for a friend, but of course, it's all sunshine and roses for her. Thanks, fate. That's quite a hand you've dealt there.

Realistically speaking, we all know tarot is as accurate as reading horoscopes or tea leaves. But right now, I'm facing the unknown, and sometimes it's more helpful to place your faith in some bits of card than worry about things that can't be controlled. I'm sure everything will fall into place before I leave, but as of today it's looking more and more daunting.

Currently reading:

Millington, A. T. (2013), War and the Warrior: Functions of Ares in Literature and Cult, University College London

Hampshire, S., ed. (1980), Public and Private Morality, Cambridge University Press