A hairy, eight-legged, half-inch creepy crawly slowly climbs up the leg of the dining room table. I watch its steady progression. My friend is placed at the destination of the crawler and is yammering off about how her boyfriend is so great. I pay no mind and keep my eyes trained on that wannabe horrifying beast.

My friend catches that I gave up listening to her nonsense and notices where I am looking. She adverts her gaze to the monster and instantly, a gear clicks in her cranium and she starts to scream.

Fears. Everyone has them whether it is arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, Kakorrhaphiophobia, the fear of failure or defeat, or hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophiobia, the fear of big words.

Even I have them.

My fear is out of the ordinary. It is not simple like the fear of spiders or the fear of being touched. My fear is deeper and more figurative.

I fear quicksand.

I know it is silly to fear a thing that is not in Cypress or even Houston, but what you are probably thinking is not what I am talking about.

Picture this: I am walking into school after I just had a horrible screaming match with my mother that has left me disturbed and grounded for the rest of eternity. I am almost to my first period class when the tardy bell rings and the teacher monitoring the hallways catches me trying to sneak by and drags me to tardy sweep. I sit in the cafeteria calculating the day. How can it get any worse than it already is, I ask myself.

Then, I am walking to my next class, trying to be optimistic when a large cornerback’s foot hooks itself out in front of me and makes me crash down onto the tile floor. My books and papers fly everywhere. Things could not get worse than this.

Then it does.

I have no homework to turn into my Pre-cal teacher and grades are due that day and the homework I was to turn in was already three days late. Then, my test is handed back and I have made a 57. There goes my straight A record.

Suddenly, I am sinking, sinking, sinking lower into the ground without a life raft. There is no vine to pull me out, nothing to try to maneuver myself with. I have no control of what is happening.

I am screaming, fighting, and grasping everything I can find, but everything gives away. And the harder I fight it, the faster I sink.

Just like quicksand.

The only thing I can do now is to give up and let it devour me.

I fear quicksand, but I know that if I do finally give up and decide it can have me that things will get better or at least slow down. I might not rise to the top and be peppy Kristin, but I will not sink as fast as if I fight it.

My friend jumps up and starts to dance around the kitchen while she is screaming at the top of her lungs. I laugh. The harmless critter starts to dart across the table. I capture the little monster in a mason jar and scoop it up and throw it outside.

Fears can make you go insane with worry and have you tough it out, or they can make you dance around and jump onto counters, chairs, and tables like a fool. So choose if you’ll rule over them… or if they rule over you.