Letting fear become your fact

I wanted to thank everyone for their kind responses to my freak out yesterday.  I wish I could say my heart isn't still beating out of my chest but it is.  I think it's because before it was such a distant thing and now it's a couple of calendar flips away.  I think the biggest part of why its affecting me is because of the part I can't train for...getting on the board in the water.  I'm going to have this tiny little local boy who can easily whip up on his board like it's nothing and I picture finding the right way to kneel onto the board getting far enough over to get my other leg/knee on the board without looking like a beached manatee...or farting in his face.  From that point on, I'm pretty confident.

I know, that seems like such a small thing but I am a control freak and not being in control of that part just freaks me out.  I know people say "what's the worst that could happen?"  Well I liken it to 2011 when we went to Napa and I surprised the Mr with a hot air balloon ride over wine country.  (I still crack up that two non-drinkers spent the first few days of their 15 year anniversary in wine country without drinking a single sip of wine.)  I wasn't worried about being 2500 feet over land, running into electrical wires and plummeting to our deaths, about highly flammable tanks malfunctioning...nope.  I saw the balloon and that there was no step stool to get in.  I hounded the people about how on Earth were you supposed to enter the thing and was freaked out about our weights (just over 300).  They said there were "steps" built into the basket and you ladder climb up them and into the basket.  Oh yeah, sounds simple.  So was it as bad as I thought?  Yes.  It sucked.  I was the first one in and pulled my thigh crack because it was so awkward for a tall, fat chick to attempt to hop down into a big wicker basket 4' deep with people behind you waiting to get in.  The only "upside?"  No one did it gracefully.  Thinner people did it less graceful including someone who actually dove into the basket.  I was just glad it wasn't me.  I made a point to not watch people getting in so as to not make them more nervous.

The paddle boarding is going to be the first appointment in the morning and that's fine but you have a bunch of companies that launch off of that site not just for SUP (stand up paddle) but rafts going out to the ocean and making waves.  I remember how intently the local in the raft last time was watching the Mr and throwing in his two cents and as I listen to him on the video, it makes me want to reach through the screen and punch him.  We weren't paying you for your instruction Mr. Mouth, even if one thing he said..."look at the horizon"...was the best advice someone could give to keep your balance.  There were like 5 instructors and clients all standing around focusing just on him and while he can block that crap out, I'm not as adept.  I'm sure it will be different when I'm actually doing it but I HATE that I over-analyze so much.  I'm a dweller...what can I say.  That's never going to change.  This trip has the potential to be a life changer in the best possible way or send me into a social coma curled up in the fetal position and picking nits off of each other for food.

I cannot let fear become my fact.  I just have to accept that this is what I do.  I freak out, I am and always will be a worst case scenario person.  I will analyze, re-analyze and sometimes I will do something I am uncomfortable with for myself and/or for others.  And yes, sometimes I will chicken out.  If someone asked me if I would do a hot air balloon ride again, would I?  In a hot second with the right company.  Because for as crappy an entrance as I made into the basket and the 2 days of walking funny afterward, that isn't the first thing I remember.  I think of the 52 minutes of floating over green valleys, seeing other balloons in the air around us, the sun rising over the mountain and how I can't help but smile every time I hear Fifth Dimension's "Up Up and Away."  I know the same will likely be true for this regardless of how terrified I am.

FYI-  Under my instruction, the Mr booked it.  Now if I back out, we lose $65.

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