Let me begin by restating my top three fears:
1. Airplanes
2. Sharks
3. Sleeping alone in empty houses
While I still have another three months before I get a chance to deal with my flight anxiety on the fifteen hour trip from Portland to Auckland, the other two have been put to the test. I've spent the past two weeks house sitting (sleeping alone in an empty house) and have slept soundly the whole time. No waking up every half hour with heart palpitations, convinced that the creaking my subconscious registered is an crazy man with a butcher knife. The bed is huge, though; I put pillows down the center so that I don't get lost in the middle of the night.
On Monday I decided that I had had enough of domesticity - no more cats, plants or children for me, I was going to the beach! I left early and signed up for a last-minute surfing lesson. Yes, that's right, even though the shop keeper in Astoria warned me to be careful of sharks, and even though the fifty-something man in Seaside told me about a shark attack on Christmas, I took the plunge. We wore wet suits and foamy gloves and shoes, and it was the first time that I'd been in deeper than my knees at the Oregon coast. Even though they are not sexy, I am in love with wet suits. The lesson was two and a half hours long and I managed to stand up on each of my attempts and the surf board only hit me in the head once. Now, these were not sharky waters that we lessoned around in, but the main reason that I never tried this before was because of my little phobia. (What can I say? I value my limbs. All of them.)
If anyone has a strategy for getting to Auckland without a nervous breakdown, well, I'd be forever grateful.
