Fear

A Familiar Stranger

Photo by Vadim Bogulov on Unsplash

Fear’s been my shadow for as long as I can remember. It knows me too well, like a friend who’s overstayed their welcome but won’t leave.

I used to think I’ll outgrow it. My dad was fearless — or seemed that way — fixing broken things and staring down life like it owed him something. I’d watch him and feel like I was failing, like fear was a flaw I’d sand off someday.

But the older I get, the more I see it’s not that simple. Fear doesn’t just vanish; it changes shape, gets sneakier. It’s not the dark or falling off stairs I’m afraid of anymore — it’s the choices I might get wrong, the time I might waste chasing things that only look like happiness, and the hypothetical versions of me I’ll never become.

Some days, the fear of losing someone close overwhelms me. It’s so real sometimes, I can feel it coming. Most times, it’s not even rational, just this sudden, suffocating dread. I guess fear doesn’t care about logic. It just stares long at you and says, “You’re alive, and that means you’ve got something to lose.” And it’s right — I do.

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot — how fear might point to what matters. I’m terrified of failing the people who count on me, and that tells me how much they mean. I’m scared of putting my words out here — like this essay — and having them fall flat, and that shows me I care about being heard. Perhaps fear’s a messy, loud way of saying, “This is what you’re tied to.”

Sometimes, though, it’s too much. I’ve lost hours to it — lying awake, replaying conversations, imagining worst-case scenarios until my head’s a tangle of what-ifs. It’s a thief like that, stealing time and nerve if you let it.

I don’t think fear’s ever going away, not really. It’s part of the deal — being here, feeling things, caring about anything at all.

Fear is a room with no exit.

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Hey! Thank you for reading Fear.
A version of this story was first published on Medium
© Jo-jo 2025 | All rights reserved

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