
Fear, for me, is like having my head in a hatbox.
I saw a drawing once,
from an old Disney Record album of “The Haunted Mansion”
(Which I wore out because I loved it so much)
of a man holding a guy’s head in a hatbox.
That’s the fear that drives me to do
all the insane and stupid mistakes I’ve made in my life
as well as clipped the considerable wings I know I have
that may have brought me to a better place
than I am now.
I’ve always been afraid of failing other people
more than anything else in my life.
More than being covered in Spiders.
That’s one reason I married my first wife;
I had a child coming, you see…and a man takes care of his child…
or he’s not a man and I wasn’t going to fail at that..
So, instead, I settled on being terrified of his mother…
for 24 years.
I’ve had great jobs and worked not so great jobs
but it’s usually at the great jobs where the fear creeps in
and I end up destroying things…
I get arrogant, you see..
thinking I’m doing such a great job that they couldn’t do without me..
and then I make a mistake,
and I realize it’s a bad one and try desperately to wallow out of the muck;
and fear grabs ahold of my mind and chokes me until I’m either useless or fired.
At this very moment, I have in fact, failed again…
I had a meltdown at work due to all the stress surrounding the job
and had to take time to “heal”…
which of course means that fear has come and wrapped itself
around my mind and thoughts like a Lovecraftian Elder-God
and I just know I’m going to be shown the way out.
Shown the way out holding my head in a hatbox…because that’s what fear does—
It decapitates me.

Leave a Reply