Fear is part of life

Driving home from Sedona today. Actually, I ride shotgun about 99% of the time. My husband likes to drive. I don’t. It works out well. Mostly. I get a little annoyed when he drives like he’s in a race against time. It scares me. And when I have fear, I tend to react. It isn’t always ugly, but I usually need to make amends for my tone or my words. 
Fear, it seems, is a common theme that has had more than its fair share of running my life. Most of it was unbeknownst to me, sneaking around and controlling me. Meanwhile, I kept wondering how things kept happening to me and why people didn’t understand me. Once I became aware of fear and its role in my life, it became impossible to ignore it further. I’m not always aware of the fear that comes in and tries to take over, but once I am, it is a process of awareness, acceptance, surrender, and discovery. The order is iffy and sometimes overlaps and gets entangled. There’s growth too. Not always enough, in my opinion—I mean if I’m going to suffer and struggle at the hands of my own mind making shit up, I should be close to sainthood once through the process. Nope. Not yet, anyway. Maybe someday someone will come along and crown me a saint or martyr, but for now I am a spiritual being having a human experience. Or so I’m told. Some things that I have fear of: going to the store and buying the wrong thing; being chubby forever; staying in the town we currently live in; cancer ‘coming back’ and having to do chemotherapy again; cancer ‘coming back’ and not having chemotherapy as an option; praying for the wrong thing; being hopeful; being negative; not being good enough; being wrong in my faith in my Higher Power; going to Hell even though I believe we create our own Hell in life; not being able to live where I want to live; living where I think I want to live and it being wrong; wherever I go, there I am; not being remembered for being good and whole and loving; not being remembered at work for being a good, solid, loving teacher; that I am the only one who is insecure and unsure; wearing the wrong outfit for the occasion; looking poor; not fitting in where I think I want to fit in; not getting closer and being connected with my Higher Power, my children and grandchildren, my friends and family, and my husband; that I forced my husband to marry me and he just did it because we thought I was dying of cancer; surviving cancer only to find I am still insecure and haven’t gotten any closer to my HP and I’m still the same ole’ reactive, immature, needy Shannon; being fit and attractive because then I get male attention, and I don’t deserve to be attractive and fit; being unattractive and flabby….