PHOBOPHOBIA

I have only two fears; the fear of the future and the fear of the past. I fear the fact that I did something wrong a few minutes ago. I fear the fact that I said something I shouldn’t have said to someone and now I can’t take it back just like I can’t un-ring a bell. So I’m here; on my bed blaming myself for running in the rain with someone last night, for missing class this morning and for not reading for a test I have tomorrow since about three months ago. I hate myself right now because 3 years ago, I met a stranger who is now is a friend that I have fallen in love with but doesn’t think of me that way. I wish I could go back three years earlier and undo what I did, but the most I can do is sit here and brood or keep trying to find a solution to what I feel. It’s all part of history now, I say to myself but just a few minutes ago I made a mistake, a terrible one and that doesn’t seem like history to me because it’s not years ago but the truth is: it is really history. Every second of my life that passes by is history and whatever I do cannot be undone, so I should treat every second pricelessly. But how can I do this? How can I make the perfect decision? The perfect choice, say the perfect words and do the perfect things every second. I guess for me to do that I need to be able to predict the future.
What scares me more is what the future holds for me. Because I know I can’t undo the past but I can do it right in the future. Choices have been made, words have been said and deeds have been done and I am only going to make more choices, say more words and do more deeds. So I try to predict what happens when I say or do something and then I ponder for days and months on this and I end up here again, on my bed, blaming myself for making the choice of pondering about what to do. So I ask myself, should I just be spontaneous about life or I should treat life very meticulously until the future I’m hoping for becomes the past? And because I do not have the answers to these questions, I get even more scared.
Scared of what I have done in the past and how nemesis awaits me in the future. Scared of the future because my nemesis awaits me there, in the fresh sets of decisions I’m going to make and how I’m going to make more mistakes; trying to correct the ones I have made in the past. This fear consumes and overwhelms me because I have nothing left with me but my future, my past and my present. But my present has just passed and I’m in another; I have only little of my present.
Fear takes the better part of me whenever it comes around and so I try not to get scared but in the end, I realize that the only fear I have is what I fear the most; fear itself.
AJAYI O. CHARLES