CARNIVAL RIDE

 The county fair came and went last week, and I did not catch so much as a peek or a peep of it.

Fairs past, I spent hours in the ag pavilion alongside my kids as they showed hogs and lambs. Or in the Junior Exhibits Building, helping display children's sewing projects and judging baking entries.

Many years ago, I worked in the high school marching band concession stand, selling hamburgers and Cokes to hungry patrons. (I played French horn, if you're curious.) I was even coerced once as a teenager to participate in the Fairest of the Fair Pageant...one of THE most miserable nights of my teenage years, given that I suffered from crippling shyness and was most definitely not a beauty.

I drive a lot for work. A LOT, as in 15,000 miles in the past four months. All that driving provides much time for thinking...and for remembering fairs past.

As a child, one carnival ride I wanted to be absolutely certain to go on each year was the Hunted Mansion. For starters, it didn't make me sick to my stomach, like the tilt-a-whirl. But more compelling, I felt like the fact that I survived that jerky, box car ride along the tiny twisting track each year and came out alive somehow proved that I was stronger and braver than I felt.

The funny thing is...

I never kept my eyes open. Not once. Year after year, I rode the entire ride with my eyes squeezed tightly shut and my hands over my ears. Terrified, but so determined to prove to myself and others that I was brave.

Fast forward several decades.

Sometime between childhood and now, I don't remember when, I revisited the Haunted Mansion. I rode the entire ride with eyes and ears wide open.

It. Was. Stupid.

I came out thinking, "That was IT? That's what I was afraid of all those years ago?!"

* * * * *

Sadly, I have lived much of my life like that scared little child on the Haunted Mansion carnival ride. Closed in, eyes tightly shut. Afraid...of what? Afraid of failure, ridicule, not being good enough. Afraid of disappointing others, or myself. Afraid of looking ridiculous. Afraid of the negative, critical comments of others.

Thankfully, I am gradually learning to open my eyes. To risk being a failure, not good enough, and ridiculous. It's scary sometimes, to take these chances, but I am finding that the longer I open my eyes, the less scary life becomes.