sawyer loved cape hazel tasks. well, most of the time, at least. they gave him something do to, something other than his own anxieties to focus on,Ā and more often than not, something to channel his creative energy into. sure, writing about his fears wasnāt the same as writing and composing a song, but it was a way to let out everything heād been feeling and keeping inside himselfĀ ātil he felt like he could burst. with no reluctance, he picked up a journal filled with lyrics and random thoughts he scribbled down throughout the day, flipped to a clean page, and got to work.
āi think it might be easier to tell you what iām not afraid of rather than what i am. these days, it seems iām scared of everything, but let me try to narrow it down for you: iām scared of failure, of loneliness, of rejection, of heartbreak, of my boyfriend realising he could do better without me, of heights and sometimes spiders, of home, of people i donāt know. of myself. all of these things scare me, and itās fucking debilitating. sometimes i feel like thereās something sitting on my chest, squeezing the breath and the life out of me. i feel like iām fucking screaming into a void for help, but nothingās coming out, and no one can hear me. or worse, they can, and theyāre ignoring me. how do i tell the people i love the most that thereās this fear, this sadness inside me without worrying them? how do i tell the boy i love that i donāt love him despite all of his faults; that instead i love him for him, faults and all? how do i make him believe me? sometimes, i donāt think he ever will. sometimes, i think iām destined to end up alone, destined to let this absolute dread swallow me whole.ā
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in light of what's happened, the mayor and his loving husband think it's best for the citizens to confront their fears. emotions ran high, and overall, it's safe to say that it has not been a pleasant week. the zark has been retired, but there's still tension in the air. zeff thinks it may be best to write down your worst fear on a piece of paper. it should explain what's behind it so you can explore those feelings, so when we all tie it to a balloon, the weight of that fear can be lifted. (zoey 101 does not own the balloon thing, zeff checked.) please write a drabble or so about your character's worst fear and tag it as chtask013, and please have it done by september 30th!
indy had never been one to confront her fears. noāthat wasnāt right. she was fully prepared to confront them, but talking about them was a whole different beast, one she didnāt often feel comfortable doing. usually she kept her deepest thoughts to herself, choosing instead to exude an air of false confidence she could only hope would fool those closest to her. zeffās latest task, however, left no room for her to hide. she truly considered sitting this one out, watching as the town wrote about their fears without fear, but she couldnāt bring herself to do it. maybe this would be good for her, she reasoned for hours on end, maybe it would make everything she held so close to her chest feel less scary. she wasnāt sure it would work, of course, but it had to be worth the risk, right?
āi donāt think my greatest fear is a physical thing. i mean, it might turn into one someday, but right now, itās a fear of the future, a debilitating feeling that iām going nowhere and doing absolutely nothing with my life. iāve spent years and years working on and perfecting my art, and yet, here i am, still in cape hazel, still working dead-end and meaningless jobs i hate while my friends move on to bigger and better things in much more glamorous cities. the things isāitās that i know iām good. i know my art is good enough to be put in museums and showcases, but putting myself out there and facing the possibility of rejection and failure makes my breath cut short and my hands shake. i canāt do it. i canāt risk the possibility that, after all the heartache iāve already endured, that the one thing i think i love is something iām not destined to do forever. iām scared of failure. iām terrified of not being good enough. iām fucking scared of being stuck here forever. i guess, in the end, iām just terrified of my own future.ā
there is a knock on its door that sounds like pounding in his hungover state. daniel has no idea that once he drags himself from the stained carpet to answer that insistent - good god - person on the other side, that his life is changing.Ā
ārosa?ā he slurrs.Ā
āwe need to talk,ā she replies.
itās almost too much for his brain to comprehend when his, his - what was rosa to him anyway? she couldnāt be his girlfriend. there wasnāt any level of feeling or commitment to justify calling her his girlfriend. a regular fling would be more like it, someone that daniel would call when he is horny and not completely drunk out of his mind. she never seemed to mind and she always seemed to understand they have no relationship whatsoever, so daniel canāt understand when she arrives at eleven in the morning in his apartment. who even is awake this early.Ā
but then, her words make no sense. rosa looks at him, only twenty years old and terrified and she tells him, really puts these words out into the world.Ā
iām pregnant, daniel. she tells him. and i know itās yours.Ā
so what? she wants- wants some sort of money, so she can have this child. daniel doesnāt need to worry about it though, because rosa tells him - sheās giving up their child for adoption. which is awesome - great, even. at least sheās not thinking of abortion. but then again, how many kids do they know whose life in the system wasnāt good? and why he is wide awake and sober in the morning thinking of an unborn child?Ā
he calls his sister. asks her opinion, asks her if she thinks he can do it, if he really tries his best and he goes to rehab. she tells him yes and bless her soul, he wants to try. so daniel calls his parents next. heās a sobbing mess, nearly incoherent as he begs his parents to please. please help him. please help him to keep his baby.Ā
give him a chance to be a good father. a better man.Ā
āĀ āĀ āĀ āĀ
daniel leaves hope to rest for the night with a kiss on the forehead. he smiles. he still feels like the luckiest man alive to have the privilege to raise such an amazing little girl like hope. she gave him everything heās proud of today. he owes everything to her.Ā
he walks away from her bedroom, steps getting heavier as he reaches the kitchen. he pulls drawers open and retrieves a small notepad and a pen. heās been thinking about the task their mayor put upon them, but hasnāt been able to write anything down yet.Ā
he scribbles, my greatest fear is writing this.Ā
the paper is ripped of course and daniel turns into a ball before he tosses it on the trash. he sighs, exasperated as he looks into the menacing page of white. writing about his feelings was always the worst part of therapy for him. because when he speaks, evidence is erased. anything you write down weights more it seems, and he doesnāt like to look inside his own fears. but then he straightens his back, taps his fingers against the island marble top and starts writing.Ā
āiāve grown up a kid that thought he would never know fear in his life. everything was made in a whim. the old me didnāt care about a thing - not himself, not his family, not his friends. when nothing is valuable, there isnāt a thing to inspire fear. itās a paradox: there isnāt fear without hope.Ā
but again, is there anything at all without hope? she inspired me and she still inspires me to be a good man. she is all the reason iām trying to make the world a little better, just so she wonāt have to grow up surrounded by cruelty. she is my everything, the only light in my life and the only thing that keeps me moving forward.Ā
sheās getting so smart, though. she was small and teethless just yesterday and now sheās grown and so beautiful and she makes all the best questions and i adore her more every day. however sheās also asking the worst questions, like
whoās my mother?
why arenāt you married?
and iām not ready to answer those things because up until now i could pretend iām this amazing person. i am her knight in shining armor. iām her superhero. but even i know that iām not that good enough to live up to those expectations.Ā
so my greatest fear is to disappoint my hope. iām terrified of the prospect of seeing her losing her faith in me and thinking iām no longer a good man, a man good enough to be her papa.Ā my relationship with her is my most important thing. there isnāt anything in this world that can even begin to compare. it kills me to think that this can fall apart because of my past. it kills me that i might be breaking my promise.Ā
what if iām not a good father? what if iām not even a good man?ā
harleyās sixteen when he finishes his senior year of high school. his teachers pull him aside frequently-- some of them are disappointed, he knows. they say good luck with their mouths and youāre wasting your potential with their eyes, and whatever, what the fuck do they know?
harleyās sixteen when he graduates anyway. he watches someone else make the valedictorianās speech. old habits die hard, and he runs his speech against theirs quietly. he claps when they finish, and then he walks the stage and he gets his diploma. people linger around the venue long after the ceremony ends, but harley doesnāt really stick around. he finds his mom, and she smiles at him and hugs him. he hugs her back. she says, lip trembling,Ā weāre so proud of you, the first time sheās ever said it, and harley thinks about it all the way to the car. he thinks about the empty passengerās seat when he climbs in. we, she said.Ā are his moms finally talking again? he wonders. when they get home, is his other mom going to be there again, moved in again, part of their family again?
his mother doesnāt make it two blocks; harley hears her breathing picking up moments before she eases the car to a stop on the side of the road, and she answers his questions when she puts her face in her hands.
harleyās sixteen when he first sees his ma cry.Ā his ma says, i miss her. she says, god,Ā iām so sorry. harleyās sixteen, and no oneās taught him how to make people feel better when they cry like this, but itās his mom, which means he has to try. he tells her what heād want someone to say to him. he tells her, youāre always gonna have me, and he tells her, itās okay. weāre gonna be okay.
heās sixteen when he starts picking up full-time shifts at the shop. his ma tells him, you should be in school, and he tells her, grinning, but who would you yell at to do the laundry? his ma clicks her tongue every time, but she smiles, and somewhere there harley knows thereās a thank you. he tucks away his acceptance letters away with his old folders and notebooks. he ignores the claustrophobia that mounts throughout the summer, through the clouds of smoke of people driving away in their cars, bags packed, faces giddy. people that were too old for him in school-- people that he never really knew because of it. people that make shame curdle in his stomach anyway.Ā
harleyās twenty-two when he writes it out for the first time:Ā iām scared of not being enough. heās twenty-two and heās not aĀ kidĀ anymore, so thereās nothing that justifies how much he cries over that stupid piece of paper, but he does it anyway and canāt even finish the thing. he has to stick a bag of frozen peas over his eyes and sleep it off in the garage.
in the morning, heās twenty-two and a day older, and rereading what he wrote so far feels like reading a note someone else had left behind for him. the words feel alien, but thatās fine-- that makes it more bearable. harley addsĀ heightsĀ under it. then spiders.Ā big spiders, he writes,Ā but also really little ones, because then how the fuck do you keep track of where they go?, and some time later when heāsĀ carefully traced the certainty of each letter, he folds up the paper for whenever this balloon thingās supposed to happen and tucks it away.
then he goes back to work.
--
iām scared of not doing enough. iām scared of not being enough. iām scared my friends donāt really like me. iām scared theyāll realize they could do more and do better and that theyāll find more and find better. iām scared my mom thinks i want to leave her too. iām scared that she doesnāt know i love her, that iād never ever ever do that to her. iām scared that iām never gonna be able to tell her that. why canāt i tell people that? howās throwing a stupid balloon supposed to help me figure th
iām scared of heights. iām scared of spiders. like, big spiders, but small ones too, because then how do you keep track of where they go? iām scared of airplanes. iāve never been on one, but i donāt need that experience to know iām right. iām scared of their wheels that look like little dinosaur hands from a distance but are probably, like three times my size.Ā iām scared this balloonās gonna pop in someoneās tree and theyāll read it and recognize my handwriting. if thatās what happened, if youāre reading this right now, just make sure you recycle this and save the environment and shit, okay? thanks.
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Ā Ā Ā sitting crossed legged on his bed, a sleeping cat purring contently at his side, tate looked down at the piece of paper he was going to be tying to a balloon and letting it go up in the air. he felt sort of bad because they were going to be putting more plastic into the air,Ā but this was something heās wanted to do for a while. he held so much weight on his shoulders that he tried to hide away. when he finally could manage to put the pen on the paper and start writing about it, it felt like he couldnāt stop. with his coffee steam warming his side, the sound of rain pattering on the ground below, and the comfy blanket wrapped around his shoulders, tate started to write away his feelings.Ā
Ā Ā Ā āThinking of what to put here made me realize there are two things I need to work on. Two fears that plague me constantly. Being alone and not being enough.Ā
Ā Ā Ā The first one makes me feel bad. I know I have friends all over, and that fact makes me the happiest person in the world. Especially here in the Cape I have friends that I know Iāll never be able to let go of. But I think this and my second fear work together to make something not so nice. Who really likes me? I like everyone here, honestly. There arenāt many people I donāt like. When Iām around the people I enjoy though I wonder āDo they want to be here as much as I do? Do they like and care for me as I care for them?ā I worry that one day Iāll ask to hang out and no one will want to anymore. I worry theyāll get hurt and leave me alone.Ā
Ā Ā Ā Without people, my next fear would be impossible to beat. Some days itās already too much that I feel like I canāt get out of bed. If it werenāt for my friends, what would stop me?Ā
Ā Ā Ā I love my job, I really do. I love talking to people and writing about them. Love following the lives of others, seeing their successes, their loss, their love. They inspire me so much, and writing them couldnāt be more rewarding. I feel like everyone sits back and looks at their work and thinks Is this good? I look at the stories though and at times think Wow, who am I compared to this people?Ā
Ā Ā Ā Itās a weird feeling thatās hard to explain. I feel like Iām not doing enough with my time. I feel like my writing isnāt good enough to express how lovely the peopleās lives are. I feel like Iām not good enough. Who am I? Well, Iām Tate Lee, a journalist. What else though? Is there anything about me that makes people want to stick around? I know how I feel about others. I get attached easily. I see different things in every single person I meet that makes me feel like they are the best people in the world. I donāt think people see that with me. I donāt think I have something that would make them.Ā
Ā Ā Ā Writing this got way too long, which is the bad journalist habit I have, but itās made me realize that maybe I should go talk to someone in order to solve this. I donāt want to talk to my friends because I know when others talk to me about their issues, I get sad. I donāt want them to get sad. It would be nice though to be the one talking for once instead of listening⦠so maybe Iāll see what the Cape has for therapists. Or maybe I should go home and talk to mom. Lolli is a pretty good listener too, but she squirms if I hold her too long. I think watching this go up in a balloon will also be nice, and I hope it brings some relief to me as well as everyone else.ā