When I was nineteen, I could quite happily travel on the back of motorbike at 90 mph, and it would never even occur to me that anything bad could happen. Luckily nothing ever did, but now, my first thoughts are all about the bad outcomes. With age comes too much knowledge, and although that is obviously a good thing, it does somewhat curtail one’s enjoyment of things. Well of slightly dangerous things, anyway!
When I first passed my driving test, I used to take great delight in forcing my little car to go over 100 mph, and once managed 106 (going downhill). I didn’t care about getting caught by the police, and again, it never occurred to me it could all end in tears. Now my head is full of horrific crash stories and the desire not to have a huge fine for speeding!
This is all beginning to sound like I want to be really irresponsible, and of course I don’t – it’s just that nowadays everything seems to scare me. I think having children may have something to do with it. I find I’m in a constant state of worry about them whenever they go out (even though one is now 18 and the other 27!), and now one of them is driving, that’s even worse. When you have someone else to worry about apart from yourself, everything is suddenly much more important – and danger lurks around every corner!
All I seem to do is be beset with fears about all the bad things that could happen to me, or members of my family, or friends – the list goes on. It kinda takes the fun out of things. I don’t even enjoy fairground rides as much as I did. I keep thinking of all the unlikely disasters that could happen. Of course watching Final Destination 3 didn’t help with that!
So to sum up, fear is part of my mid-life crisis because I keep harking back to being nineteen and fearless again, and I realise it’s never going to happen. I’m still nineteen inside though……… 🙂