I used to wish for lots of things.

That I would be a better singer. Or could write song lyrics. Or poetry. That I wasn’t so afraid of things. And remembered birthdays and bought thoughtful presents that made my friends smile. That I was better organized, kept things tidier, made time for trying something new.

For a while, I wanted to be a great chef, then a great journalist, then a great anything. I wanted to live by the ocean and hear the waves on the beach and write all day. I wanted to make the world a better place. Make everyone happy. Be perfect.

I hoped I might see the world and be a better friend and for a short period in the nineties, I wanted to own a Camero. I dreamed of owning a horse until I met one and realized I didn’t like horses, but I was only eight so I think I can be forgiven for misguided dreams.

I’ve had moments of wanting to be exactly like my mom and nothing like my mom and to never be a mom and in brief but very painful moments, I’ve wanted nothing more than to be one.

When I was little, I hoped very much to see a real smurf village, even though I knew, deep down, that they weren’t real.

I wanted to build forts and treehouses and to be better at sports and to never have to play sports again. I’ve longed to look prettier in dresses, to be more girly, to have more friends.

Then sometimes all I’ve wanted is to be alone.

I used to think that all I needed was to be loved. But then I realized that was just a song. Sometimes I want ice cream even though it’s cold, and a quiet place to read and blank paper and a good pen, and I want more time, if only there was more time and I could save it in a bottle, but that’s only a song too.

We all want to be happy.

I have a spider in my bathroom. It’s not a small spider, although it’s not one of those crazy scary huge hairy ones either. It has a plump silver body and long skinny legs and it’s camped out on the otherwise nondescript ceiling in the corner of my shower. Every so often he throws his legs in the air and waves them around, but otherwise he seems pretty content to just hang out.

When I shower, I can’t turn my back on him for fear he might be one of those stealthy jumping spiders and will leap out and tangle himself in my hair when I least expect it. Or possibly he’s a tarzan-style jungle spider who can throw out his web like a lasso and then ride down it towards my face like a zipline.

I don’t know what to do about him. Or her. I’m actually more worried he’s a her. I dream of a thousand baby tarzan spiders, all zipping towards me at lightning speed, yelling their tarzan spider yell. And that vision is no Charlette’s Web, no matter what you might be thinking. Also, my shower has no pig.

I try to think positive thoughts: Spiders keep away other insects, not that I’ve had a big mosquito problem lately in my shower. Spiders can’t really hurt you, at least not this particular spider although it would be exceedingly foolish to think that no spiders can hurt you, especially those in Australia or the southwestern United States. Or the rain forest. Or California. Or… OK, I take that back. Just about every spider with the possible exception of my shower-dwelling friend can hurt you.

But instead of thinking positive thoughts, I mostly think (in addition to being sure I’ll be leapt on by her or her million babies), please don’t crawl on my face in my sleep, please don’t crawl on my face in my sleep. I don’t know why that seems to be the most torturous situation one could find oneself in, but there it is.

So every morning I ponder the hopefully male spider, and every day, he stays firming in one spot, wiggling his feet. I’ve considered capturing him in a container and putting him outside (I’m much too short and he would surely escape my prison and fly at me as I crashed to the ground and ended up at the spider’s mercy as I lay there unconscious). Or I could aim the shower spray at him and wash him down the drain (spray would likely just make him mad and cause him to jump towards my face and … well, you get the picture; also I’ve seen 20/20 — he would just return from the dripping bowels of the drain and rise once again to sit in my corner, only this time, he’d be back for vengeance).

Maybe he’ll go away on his own, although if he does I’d worry about just where he took off to (and is he hiding in a nice dark spot so that as soon as I close my eyes he can strike and/or have his million babies?). My choices are few. It’s come down to this.

Anyone free to come by and take care of my spider problem for me? Yes, it’s an unusual hit, and the target is slippery. He can escape by web vine, superspider leaps, or wiggling legs. Also watch for him jumping into your hair. Might be pregnant with a million tiny spider demon babies. Consider bringing a pig to talk him down.

First of all, I’m not trying to say that I’ve conquered fear or I’m not afraid of anything or that I don’t sometimes absolutely flat out panic (about my life or the future or that I don’t have any clean clothes to pack). That’s crazy. Of course I get afraid. At all kinds of things, just like everyone.

But, I’m less afraid than I used to be, and looking back, I feel like I used to be afraid all the time.

I suppose there are some ways in which I’ve never been afraid when a lot of people are: moving, changing jobs, meeting new people. Not that I don’t always have that moment of what the fuck am I doing, but a life of change has made me mostly immune to hesitation for things like that.

But my lack of fear is different than it used to be. I mostly now think I don’t know what the hell is going to happen, but whatever it is, I will somehow survive it. Maybe that’s a result of surviving every time my life has been turned upside down or maybe it’s just getting older, realizing that I’m living out the one life I have, and so be it. Maybe it’s a survival mechansim — a way to cope when I would otherwise go completely insane from lack of control. I really like the control, and sometimes, I really just don’t have it.

I do know that fearing the unknown, being afraid of what comes next doesn’t help anything. Knowing the unhelpfulness doesn’t make the fear go away, but after being beaten down with it again and again — after panicking for absolutely no useful purpose so many times, just maybe my brain has just decided to go along for the ride.

Or maybe this is a short-lived pocket of insanity and I’ll return to my fearful ways any moment.

I was on a flight the other day, remarkably not freaking out at the turbulence and I realized it was that perhaps just this: that  I was afraid of the wrong things. I was spending all my resources: my emotions, my time, my energy, flailing against windmills. If I’m afraid of the turbulence of the flight, I’m spending my energy pretty uselessly. Turbulence isn’t what causes planes to fall from the sky. If I’m going to be afraid, it may as well be of something scary, something worth fearing. Turbulence ain’t it.

Someone asked me last night about changing jobs - but what if the company you’re at now fails? You left such stability, security, long-term career growth. it didn’t take me but a second to answer. So I’ll find something else. The path you’re on now may completely crumble and fall apart. So you find a new path. You won’t stay frozen, standing amidst the crumbling forever.

Several months ago, I was in a cab and the driver was telling me about how he escaped from his home country in Africa. His country was in the midst of a war. He’d been brainwashed to fight for a cause. He said that not being afraid saved his life. He knows now that he was brainwashed — that he’d been fed this idea that his own life was worth nothing, only the cause was worthwhile and if he died, someone would rise up to take his place so it was ok. But even so, feeling that made him not fear the possibility of death and fearlessness caused him to take risks that ultimately saved him.

It’s a different way of looking at things. We think fear saves us, keeps us from danger. But sometimes fearlessness lets us change, move from where we are, from a place that may be killing us and we don’t even know it.

A friend recently told me that we always know the right choice. That the hard part of choices is doing what it is we already know is what we want to do. I argued that it’s not always that easy. Sometimes we have no idea what the right choice is. He stood firm. I’d had a few martinis so I caved. but I don’t know. Do we always know the right choice and the hard part is in making it? How can we know when fear is protecting us or holding us back?

That I don’t know. I only know that I’m plowing ahead, making the choices I can, trying not to worry about the rest. I’m not saying I don’t worry, but I don’t want my entire life to be ruled by fear. There’s only so much of it left.

However. I’m still afraid of spiders.