My post on this one is a bit silly, but then again, unless it's serious like a man with a hatchet is chasing you down trying to murder you, feeling fearful is usually silly.
A few years before Dave and I started dating, I went out on a date with a guy who was really good at thinking up awesome, romantic dates. He was also really good at dating many girls at once, but I digress.
One particular date consisted of us hiking along some train tracks that wove in and out of woods. We stopped at one point and ate dinner on an abandoned bridge that overlooked the tracks and even found a hidden spot that you could sit comfortably in and watch the moon rise. It was really pretty.
Then we had to walk back to the car, in the middle of the dark woods, in the middle of the pitch black night. It was terrifying. My knees were knocking together I was so petrified, I could barely walk back. So my date decided to teach me a particular section of the epic poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" :
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
If you actually just read what I pasted there you are probably wondering why the heck this guy would teach me something like this when I'm fearing whatever frightful fiend might be sneaking up behind me. I don't know why either, but surprisingly, it calmed me down enough to get back to the car without panicking. We spent the whole walk (which felt like hours) reciting it over and over again. I still use this trick to this day by the way, when we were up in the mountains over labor day Dave and I had to walk back to the house on a dark path. Bears, snakes, elk, whatever could have had a great feast and I got scared again. Then I started reciting these lines, and I was okay. The guy may have been a jerk, but at least he had good taste in literature.
When have you been afraid?
