And by "you," I of course mean me.
Like most humans, I have a phobia -- a crippling, irrational fear of something. Most people's phobias are centered on one thing -- clowns, doctors, the number 13 -- whatever. My phobia is odd, in that it seems to change subjects randomly. For a while when I was young, it was clowns. In my mid-20s, it was (embarrasingly enough) pigeons. I have no phobias of either anymore -- not through any kind of therapy, either. Both phobias just vanished one day.
Of course, new phobias spring up to replace the old. A few years ago, I was on the ferris wheel at Chicago's Navy Pier, which I'd been on many times before. This time, though, I felt crippling, irrational fear and panic. I'd soon learn that I was now deathly afraid of heights, but only if there was an open edge that I could conceivably fall from. This phobia persisted until. . . well, today.
I walk by this railing (and its accompanying four-story drop) every day, and until today, I always got that fluttering in my gut that presages a panic attack. Today, nothing. I even hopped up and dangled the upper half of me over the edge -- nothing.
So, as quickly and inexplicably as it manifested, the acrophobia has vanished. I'm wondering now what new phobia has taken its place -- because there is one. I just don't know what it is yet.
