I Was Scared
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Seoul, South Korea
I Was Scared
Back in 2012, when we were preparing our house for sale, we replaced all the kitchen cabinets—17 years of cooking and slamming and kitchen hockey had pretty much destroyed the originals.
The guy who did the work was a talkative soul, and between the demolition and the installation, he spent days in our kitchen. Because I am polite to a fault, and because we had two teenagers who needed to be fed, I wound up engaging in a lot of chat with Cabinet Man. At some point, he realized that I had zero emotional investment in these pristine new cabinets (I let the real estate agent choose every detail)—we were doing all this work just to sell the house. He wanted to know where we were moving. I told him about our plan to rent an apartment in downtown Raleigh.
“Really?” he asked. “Aren’t you afraid of terrorists?”
I was stunned by the question, and it has stayed with me since then. I assume that this very specific fear wormed its way into his brain on 9/11, and took up residence, throwing a dark, pinched shadow over his life. I couldn’t imagine living every day in that kind of fear. Yes, I grapple with anxiety, but I don’t want it to make decisions for me, so I work hard to understand it and keep it under control.
Then this *insert expletive of your choice* virus happened. It turns out I can totally imagine living in fear.
We’ve been on the loose in Seoul for a little more than a week now. Over that time, I have slowly begun to realize just how fearful I had become. When I went to the grocery store the first time last weekend, I was in a huge rush, almost furtively grabbing the few items we absolutely had to have, and getting out as quickly as possible, to scrub my hands with sanitizer. When I went back, three days later, I realized how much of the store I had skipped, how much there was to explore. I love grocery shopping in a new country; it’s one of my most favorite things about our lifestyle. I realized, on that second grocery trip, how much I had been missing that joy of discovery. In Tokyo, and in Mexico before that, grocery shopping had been nothing but stressful—go early, hide behind a mask, limit touching, maintain distance, keep moving, NO DAWDLING.
For me, the fear of this virus has been insidious. It crept in gradually, and before I realized what had happened to my brain, I was (literally) cowering every time I went out in public. I flinched every time I heard a sneeze or a cough. I went out of my way to avoid walking near a person in a park. I started getting up at the crack of dawn, so I could get my steps in while the park was still empty. If you know me, you know I am NOT a morning person.
Here in Seoul, there is an atmosphere of calm that has enabled me to step back a bit from the tangle of my own emotions, and at least identify the thread of fear that seemed to be tying me up in knots. Yes, there is another cluster of infections happening here, but the response has been swift, competent, calm, and above all, united. I trust that the government and the epidemiologists and the public health people are working together to track down the infections and control the spread. Messaging has been consistent. The affected citizens are stepping up, getting tested, and cooperating with the isolation requirements. This feeling of trust is such a relief.
I don’t like being ruled by fear. I don’t like the person I become—small, contracted, closed-off. I want to be the kind of person who is open to new experiences, who looks outward rather than inward. I want to feel connected to the world, rather than shutting it out.
Above all, I refuse to let this damned pandemic change who I am. Hang on to your true, precious selves, my friends. You’ll be glad you did, when the fear eventually subsides.
Take care,
Lisa
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