My Short Anecdote

Short because typing on this damn iPad is something I'm not quite used to yet.

I used to fear moths. Maybe when I was five or six? They creeped me the hell out, and I remember trying to get them away from the windows at night because I detested them so much.

Then I had this phase in which compassion became this thing I was into. I didn't kill bugs or tap windows to get rid of moths. I just let them be, and even carried them out of harm's way whenever my classmates had such impulses to do otherwise. I think my mom got me into it. She has always been sorta Taoist for as long as I can remember, and to this day still says that what we call vermin are simply a part of nature that we should let be. Hm.

And when I was ten or so... I did a 180. And I have been that way ever since. Need something killed? I'm your girl. I think that was when I began to be more like my dad. He used to set mouse traps despite my tearful protests and would sit me down afterwards to explain the process of natural selection. Pretty brutal, but I guess it eventually got to me. I once killed a spider with my hand before one of my classmates could find a thick enough wad of tissue, shoved it in front of his face, and called him a wuss for wincing. Got lunch detention for it, but that's just how i was back in the seventh grade.

I think that is how I have dealt with things for the vast majority of my life. Particularly with things that I have feared. And now... Well, there really aren't many things that I can honestly say that I fear. Not many tangible things, at any rate. And this is coming from the girl who used to lie perfectly still in bed because she thought goldar might be able to see her from the window.

Not a fan of shots? Smile and watch them happen. Walking down the hallway without the light on? I see your hallway and raise you two flights of stairs. Sacrificing animals for research? Bam! Done hundreds of times over with mechanical precision.

I have decided that this is one of my favorite attributes of my personality: my willingness and ability to conquer the things that impede me. That and... I'm not the huge pussy I was when i was five.

Fun fact about pussies: I once dated a guy who yelled when he saw a spider in his living room. I killed it and, here's the baffling part, stayed with him for a year after that. Why, Jennifer?