fear: big overture, little show

In an attempt to drown out and ignore what I can of my work environment, I've been watching Buffy. Well, minimizing the screen and listening, really. One of my all-time favourite episodes is in one of my all-time least favourite seasons.

In Fear, Itself, it's Halloween in Sunnydale and the scoobies are headed to a frat party horror house, where they find themselves facing their own fears. Willow's afraid she'll be unsuccessful stepping up her magic abilities. Xander, the only member without superpowers (Buffy - slayer, Willow - witch, Oz - werewolf, Anya - former vengeance demon), fears he doesn't fit in with the rest of the gang now that they're all in college and he isn't. Oz, who keeps himself caged three nights out of the month, is afraid of going all wolfy and hurting his friends. Buffy, after having slept with a college guy who wasn't looking for a relationship but just to get into her pants, has growing fears about serious relationships and letting people into her life. And Anya...well, Anya is seriously afraid of bunnies. 'Cause c'mon, they got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!

At the frat house, a fear demon is inadvertently released and in different ways, their fears manifest and scare the bejeesus out of them. When the demon finally rises, he winds up being only a few inches tall. After he tries for a minute to be creepy and scary, Buffy laughs, squashes him with her shoe, and they all go home and eat candy.

Forty-some minutes of Whedon-witty entertainment and one simple little message: fear, itself is actually really small. You spot it, you squash it, you go home and eat candy.

At one point in the episode, my least favourite character tells Buffy he thinks she seems like the kind of person who makes things hard on herself. Yeah. Um. Hi. Right here. When it comes to squashing fear in its tracks, my natural response is usually easier said than done.

But that's a piss poor attitude. It doesn't have to be the case and it often shouldn't be as difficult as I make it. Some of the best things that have ever happened to me weren't things I had planned. They're things that just happened. And if I don't allow for change, I don't allow for the possibility of...well, any and everything. I think it certainly takes work to overcome certain fears but the things I seem to be afraid of these days aren't really of that variety.

I fear change. And it's been sucking the life out of me because even though I've felt it before and I'll feel it again, it's never quite been to this degree. I think maybe I've let some things get so out of control that I've been overcompensating when trying to get back to a comfortable balance. But the simple truth is that the things I have no control over...I can't make them how I need them to be. Because how I need them to be is really just how I want them to be. I can fight and scream and take it out on people at work or my family or most often, myself, and I can watch that accomplish absolutely nothing. Or I can focus on the things I can control and simply accept and deal with the things I can't.

Hell, I left everything and everyone I know and love, moved to Chicago with $62 to my name, and feel pretty satisfied with and proud about that decision. That's not someone who fears change. That's someone who can't fucking wait for it.

I'm going to reintroduce her.