Fear

 My wife was the editor of her college newspaper and she was a newspaper reporter shortly after we married. She is an amazing writer when she has the time and opportunity. She is a very gifted and intelligent woman. I only say this because I am trying to lay the groundwork for how articulate, intelligent and wonderful she is. She can face almost any crisis situation with much more control and resolve than I can. The only exception to this is when she knows that she has to go to the dentists office.

A few months ago I noticed that she looked to be in pain when she bit down on something. She did go to a dentist and he said that there was some infection and she could either have the tooth extracted or try and have a root canal.  He said the root canal would be no guarantee of saving the tooth and it may have to come out anyway. At any rate, she had to take care of the infection first. Well, she took the antibiotic and never went back to the dentist. I would ask her about it and she didn't really want to talk about it. "I'll take care of it when I'm ready." That was the best answer I got. Some of her siblings also have this pathological fear of dentists. I am not really sure as to why.  Last week I told her to call the dentist and set up an appointment. "I really didn't like that dentist. He had an attitude." That is what I got this time. Folks, I consider myself a patient person, but this was getting ridiculous.  Finally we set up an appointment with another dentist and everything is set. Now I went with her to this appointment for fear that she would put it off like the last time. Or worse, skip out on the appointment all together. Long story short, everything went well and the offending tooth is now gone. :) Truly, I am proud of my wife for facing this fear.

This experience has made me wonder why we are so captive to a phobia of any kind.  In most cases that thing or act that we are so afraid of never comes to pass.  If it does, it can usually be dealt with head on and resolved.  I used to be afraid to ask girls out directly for fear of rejection.  I wish I had that one to do over. :) These fears keep us from living our life to the fullest.  Am I alone in this or do we all have these things that scare and intimidate us?  I suppose the biggest fear that I have is to not try because I was afraid. That would surely be the biggest tragedy of all.