Me Post You Longtime

Wow, have been off-air for a whole week! I blame this on dodge internet and then not having my charger in Edinburgh, you can blame what you like..... However, I have certainly not given up on my quest to conquer my fears:

Saturday I went to a party full of people I had never met and managed to talk to all of them. It was a costume party hosted by a schoolfriend so I had no idea how seriously to take it. So I figured, dress up, do the makeup, wear the accessories (I was Disney's Mulan) and if you look stupid, you can call it a fashion statement. MAN was I glad I bothered; my friend's friends really got into it and we had a great night without me looking a massive, shy, drunken fool. Which was nice.

On Sunday I did something I very rarely do with people who have known me since my early teenage years - I started to defend myself when attacked. When I changed school at 13 I was lucky enough to find an amazing group of friends, and we all had our place - mine happened to be that of clown/self-deprecator/sex educator (I knew as much as they did, I just read Cosmo and my public speaking ability made me sound knowledgable). The problem with this was that it makes referring back to what I said at 14, 15 really easy because it was so outrageous, and therefore always makes a good story, so when the friend giving the party started to use school incidents as comedic fodder on Sunday morning to a guy I used to like and she may still do, I corrected her on inaccuracies and told her when I was unhappy with her tone. I never usually do this, as I'd rather be liked than cause issues, but as it is, there comes a point where everyone deserves respect and that's what I went after.

Monday to Wednesday are, to be honest, gone far from my memory, but I definitely did something every day that scared me in some way or another..... I definitely checked my bank balance and talked about money with my father, and I feel that is enough to cover these three days!

Yesterday (Thursday) I decided to tackle things I had been avoiding and had therefore grown to a ridonkulous size in my mind, but were easily sorted when addressed. I phoned the council about their repeated council tax demands despite myself and the flatmate being students. I didn;t get through but I called 15 times and left the bill by the phone to remind me to call again; do it once and it loses its fear. I also emailed the landlords about something and then finalised that today, which was handy. Finally, I picked up the phone (I've already posted about picking up the phone, but calling is as bad if not worse) and called Harvey Nichols about an eyebrow appointment, which trust me is harder than you think - there are about five people to get through and they are all either bored, rude, foreign or a combination. However, I pushed on and made an appointment for the next day, which would, rather fortuitously, be Friday 13th.....

Four's a letter, five's something better (in this case, Skype)

Whatever did human beings do before Skype? Phone, letter, carrier pigeon? Weep over their sky-high transatlantic call bills? Get upset when they don't get a reply to an email straight away or at all? Until a couple of days ago, I was one of them; I knew of Skype but hadn't really considered using it, tried it once but then my computer malfunctioned and wiped it off. If that wasn't a sign from the technology Gods, I don't know what is.

However, as well as being a technophobe's nightmare, Skype also goes right to the heart of two of my irrational fears: picking up a ringing phone and having to talk to whoever is on the other end, and seeing myself on webcam (those things ain't flattering at certain angles). So killing two birds with one stone, I set up Skype and started talking to friends in Italy, South Korea and Scotland, just typing at first, then calling yesterday and then today finally video chat. I'm always better at typing or texting conversations; it makes what I'm going to say easier to consider and analyse and there aren't any awkward pauses or massive WTF? moments. The only person I can really phone is my ex-flatmate and if we have long silences then they tend not to be too awkward.

So after a few gack moments with Skype calling, video chatting was much easier than expected once I found a decent webcam angle and adjusted to seeing myself talk (leave. Your hair. ALONE Annabel). It's bizarre to see and hear someone with such clarity when they are so far away; there's nothing like enjoying the flush of a South Korean wc as you catch up on all the goss. I'm still a bit weird with answering the phone when I know I have to have a conversation but being able to see someone is much easier and now I don't have to go months without seeing friends abroad, which is lovely. Now to combine everything and answer a phone call half-way up a muddy mountain with a sheer drop while wearing no makeup. Mebz leave that for next time.....

Lists and Hurricane Mingeflaps

So yesterday was the day of Hurricane Son of Bawbag (sadly my name Hurrican Mingeflaps didn't catch on). Therefore actually getting out of the flat to do anything scary was a tad tricky, so I plan to count going out in such vile weather (it was really rather unpleasant) to the shops as something that scares me, as it was dark and windy and rainy and loud and the traffic was mad. I also did it without makeup or having washed my hair, which those of you who know me well know that I do not really ever do, and particularly not to a supermarket with strip lighting. GAH. But still, it's still an achievement, however small.

I also made a list of all the ideas and suggestions of things I could do this year that scare me. They include:

Go to the Lake District Pencil Factory
Eat langoustines or anything else which looks as it did when alive
Weigh myself
Really talk to my mother
Let someone else dress me
Climb more hills
Book and go on a holiday
Confront people if they upset me
Dispose of a spider
Go to the doctor when I feel the need
Deal with bills the minute they come in
Learn to be better on the phone
Climb and descent stairs and not freak out about it
Stop using alcohol as an emotional crutch
Complete this blog without worrying that people are laughing at me!

Just a few random samples; anyone else have any?

Mud Flap

After the fairly extreme start to the year on Sunday, yesterday was slightly calmer and less clinging-on-to-the-side-of-a-rock-expecting-to-die, thank God. Instead, myself and the guests visited Rosslyn Chapel and went for a country walk; nothing to be frightened of there, you might think. However, the steps down to the lower echelons of the chapel are steep, stone and uneven, which is about my worst nightmare, and I would usually avoid going anywhere near them, as I have done in St Peter's in Rome, the Colloseum and stairs in railway stations when I can instead take the escalator or lift. I blame this fear on a nasty experience on steps coming down from Old Budapest set high on a hill over the new city in Hungary in the dark when I was 17; more of that at some other point.

However, in the spirit of my resolution, I managed them, and later also embarked on a horribly slippy and muddy path past a sheer drop around the outskirts of the chapel grounds when usually I would have told my friends to go on and met them back at the car; the number of times I have missed out on fun experiences on using the phrase "I'll meet you back at the car/bus/assembly point/horse and trap/statue of the syphilitic dwarf" is unfunny. Well, no more. Fun, here I come! Admittedly, this time we didn't end up having any life-changing revelations and the wind RUINED my hair, but that's not the point; now I have an excellent opportunity to tackle my paralysing terror of split ends by investing in some double-strength conditioner!

Making a mountain into a molehill

14.24PM, 1st January 2012. It is slightly wet, windy and I am perhaps 2/3 of the way to the top of Arthur's Seat. At this moment in time I was clinging to the side of the narrow rocky path, whimpering in abject terror at the possibility of falling down the rocky terrain, stabbing desperately at my phone in the hope that one of my friends who had gone ahead would pick up and gasping "Fine, fine, it's just a bit high" at other walkers when they asked how I was in between bouts of dry retching. It was not an auspicious start to the year.

Admittedly, this trip was never going to turn out well, as I hate hills, heights, climbing, physical exercise and anything that involves wearing unflattering sports gear. Myself and four friends had decided to undertake this climb of climbs as part of a packed Edinburgh schedule (they were staying with me over the new year) and I assumed that while it is a bit of a climb, it would be perfectly safe with proper paths and railings and whatever, and that wearing boots from the high street with a tweed coat and a mock croc handbag having eaten no lunch wouldn't be an issue. Fashion fail.

So it started well enough, until I stopped for a rest and told my friends to go on, thinking I would either catch them up or they would wait for me at the top, only to lose sight of them in seconds. Every time I stopped for a panic I realised how high up I was and how unstable I felt (my sense of balance and proportion is appalling and I get pretty bad vertigo), and then realised that turning back and descending on my own with no support would have been even worse. I wept openly, I saw stars, I even crawled on my hands and knees at one point; it was appalling, and potentially a tad over-dramatic, but that's just me. Finally, I thought I was almost there and had a nice chat with a charming couple who told me that from here it got "much, much easier", and so pushed on, only to be faced with my ultimate nightmare - A TINY EXPOSED CORNER WITH A SHEER DROP AND NOTHING TO HANG ON TO ON EITHER SIDE. At that point I knew I was done for and sat down and started dry heaving until a charming and wonderful man and his equally charming and wonderful girlfriend got me on my feet and held my hand until the worst was over. I could have married him on the spot.

Finally I decided to ignore the fear and just get it over with, and when I climbed the last 200 metres on my own, it felt great. Really great. Admittedly, discovering that my friends thought I had turned back and had descended without me was a bit of a dampner but I managed to stride down the other side myself with no problems and it suddenly felt totally worth it. Finding that the way down could have been a much easier climb actually made me feel even better, like I'd really done something that terrified me and not taken the easy way out.

So in short: climbing - horribly bad. Adrenaline and sense of achievement - wonderfully good.

Fear is a bull and I'm grabbing its horns. Or something.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself , said someone famous and probably dead, probably FDR. (I should know, I have a (relevant) degree.) Feel the fear and do it anyway, quoth a famous self-help book written in the late 1990s (which, by the way, is awful). Anyway, New Year 2012 has arrived and while last year was successful in many ways (I met someone, graduated, performed more than ever and got into Law school) as the bells rang out at midnight I realised that I could have done so much more if I wasn't so scared of everything all the time. And I mean everything.

I'm scared of the usual things that frighten people my age (I'm 22): never finding my dream job, finding my dream job and finding I hate it, being single forever, accidentally getting pregnant, that the man I'm dating will notice the fact that sometimes in the wrong dress I have back fat, seeing myself in the mirror the morning after a night out. I'm also frightened of spiders, heights, falling from heights, stairs (see a pattern here?), certain breeds of dog and pencils. Yes, pencils. I can't explain it but they just really make my skin creep.

So after that random sample, and it really is just a tiny random sample, I have decided that for the next 366 days I will do at least one thing every day which scares me. It doesn't have to be a huge thing or something most people would find normal and natural, it just has to be something that fear is preventing me from completing. This could get interesting.