Trepidation

The word for today is TREPIDATION. Actually, it has been the word for the past few days, but I have not sat down at the computer to write. Was that due to TREPIDATION? I don't know; I just know I have been holding onto the word. TREPIDATION is not something I want to hold on to.

TREPIDATION is panic, agitation or in its most basic form, fear. There is nothing to fear but....

Oddly, I like the sound of the word. The first two syllables sound like something I might trip over, or the act of tripping over--TREPI. I'm not sure, but I think "ation" means the state of. So TREPIDATION would mean being in the state of tripping over something, being in the state of being tripped up by one's own fear.

One of the many slogans or acronyms I retain from recovery is FEAR = False Expectations Appearing Real. But what about Real Expectations Appearing Real? What about when we can't push fear aside or push it to the REAR?

Another slogan I recall is Feel the Fear but Do it Anyway. I have learned to feel my feelings, but not get stuck in them. I have learned that my emotional process is not stuck in the mud or clogged like a drain. It flows. My feelings flow, my body flows, (yes, at age 50 my g__damn menstrual cycle still flows and flows and flows), my life flows. My emotions are like the clouds in the sky, like the weather--if I am patient, if I wait, they will change. Those who know me know how much I love language, and yet every one of these slogans, trite as they may sound, means something to me. I do not resent them. I believe, for instance, in the saying, this too shall pass.

Technology in itself is not very lyrical, but today, after a period of interruption, the music from my IPOD is flowing through my stereo speakers--Chopin, Mendelsohn, Bach,--what incredible pleasure I am capable of receiving. Also, my neighbor has fixed the sound from my computer so I once again have access to the YouTube videos and audio. My frustration was temporary.

But I was writing about fear, about TREPIDATION. My employment situation is precarious (ah, a word for another day), to say the least. On Wednesday, my Census crew leader told our team that we had almost completed our work. Apparently the government had "misunderestimated" the length of our assignment by 6 weeks! A month and a half of decent income-whooosh, gone. I felt fear.

Today I am meeting someone whom I have never met before. We have spoken extensively on the telephone--but that is different. I am meeting this person "in the flesh" as they say. I move from glorious anticipation to trepidation. I move back and forth and that is okay.

I have been thinking about another word--INTREPID. I did not know the word INTREPID until I learned about the battleship that is now permanently docked in Manhattan as a museum.
I love the word; I want to be INTREPID.

A brief history lesson for the day--with due credit to Wikipedia. The USS Intrepid is a WWII aircraft carrier that serves as a museum ship. In 1978, Zachary Fisher, a Manhattan real estate developer and philanthropist, saved the ship from being put to scrap. The museum ship served as the FBI's temporary headquarters after the destruction of the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. A scheduled renovation, in 2006, was delayed because one of the ship's propellers got stuck in the mud in Hudson River. Eventually, the ship was dredged out of the mud and floated to Staten Island where renovations took place. The ship museum is back in Manhattan and reopened in November 2008.

Next time I am in Manhattan, I am going to see the USS Intrepid. In the meantime, I think I will just be intrepid myself!