Anyone who knows me knows I am a ‘fraidy cat. I have many phobias and several other things that make me nervous or flat out worry me. I attribute most of these to my imagination.
This week my eight year old had a raging case of appendicitis and of course my imagination took over and I kept imagining the worst. As he was wheeled away into the operating room, I kept scaring myself with visions of the doctor approaching me in the waiting room with “BAD NEWS.” Ack!
The visions were vivid and detailed and I kept trying to shake them but of course my stubborn mind, imagination driving it, couldn’t let go of the idea. When I was able to see my son again in recovery, I was finally able to let go of the image. Sigh of relief.
I have heard that writers are always imagining stories from the people they meet and things they see. I know that for me I am more likely to imagine terrifying, horrendous, things rather than interesting, cool things. Swerving while driving leads to a massively catastrophic flaming death for me and everyone around me. Man in a suit showing me his FBI badge leads to a gun fight in the bookstore. Airplane flying loudly overhead leads to a fiery crash into my house.
If I could harness this power for good . . . err writing, maybe it could put it under control instead of sending myself into a panic attack driving down the freeway on my way home from piano lessons.
How is your imagination? Overactively frightening you or hiding in a corner of your mind, safely out of sight?
