I came home to find piles of dog puke all over my living room and kitchen.

Clearly, cleaning up dog puke was not on my list of things I wanted to do this evening.

I got some towels and cleaning products and began to scrub my rugs. Then I realized that ants decided to go after the mess Dali left on the mat in the kitchen (she always seems to hit some carpet when she does this, NEVER the much easier to clean tile or hardwood floors) so not only did I have to clean up puke, I had to try and remove ants. And just to check I went upstairs and saw she puked a few times on the bedroom carpet. So I got everything as clean as I could, sprayed the ant infested area with ant killer and threw the towels in the laundry. Then I remembered that I stopped at the grocery store to buy a few things before going home and I should probably put the milk away because milk goes bad when not refrigerated. Then I realized I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer for dinner so my original dinner plans were toast. Then I looked at the dishes in the sink and got immediately annoyed so I started cleaning them and when I was trying to find a place to put 1 of 100 plastic cups Dave refuses to throw away, a shot glass fell out of the cabinet and shattered all over the floor. And I got so angry by everything that just happened I literally SCREAMED.

And then I stopped, and told myself to get a grip.

Because it’s not that bad, seriously.

When little things happen, I tend to overreact. I’ve been trying to work on this. To slow down. To stop and really assess the situation in front of me. But old habits aren’t so easy to break. And sometimes, life can be a dirty whore.

That is why we have whiskey, friends.

If you watch Man v. Food on the Travel Channel, you might have seen the “Fire in your Hole” wings challenge episode he miserably failed at.

That challenge took place at Munchies 420 Cafe in Sarasota and ever since Dave and I saw that episode, we’ve been dying to get Dave’s friend Lou to do the wing challenge. He’s done a few food challenges in the past and is proud of his glutton status… and can definitely handle the hot stuff. I’ve seen this guy eat wings that the smell alone made my eyes water. We knew he’d be up for this.

We called Munchies just to make sure they open and still did the challenge. Then drove an hour and a half to Sarasota (we didn’t have anything else to do). We get there, Lou orders the wings and they tell us they are all out of the sauce. You think they could have mentioned that to Dave when he said “I have a fat ass that wants to do your wing challenge” (that’s really what he said) on the phone. I guessed it slipped their stoner minds.

So we figured since we drove all that way, we might as well eat something. Besides the Fire in your Hole challenge, Munchies is known for their enormous sandwiches loaded with all kinds of weird shit. We each ordered one. Mine had steak, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, and french fries on it topped with onions and peppers. Talk about blowing any diet I was on.

It was ok for the first couple bites, but after that not so much. With every additional bite I kept asking myself “why the hell am I eating this?” It wasn’t anything spectacular…in fact it was loaded with the exact same crap you could buy in the freezer section at a grocery store, so I was pretty surprised that the food here was on the list of Travel Channel’s best places to eat.

All in all, the night was a bit disappointing. I didn’t get to watch Lou battle hot wings and drove and hour and a half to eat sub par food. We all said we’d go back, but only to watch the wing challenge. That is, if they ever get the sauce!

The F word. It scares me.

FAILURE

I’m deathly afraid of failing.

I’m not really sure where the fear came from, but I know I’ve felt it my entire life. A lot of it probably has to do with always feeling rejected. I was the shy, awkward, introverted kid growing up. I got made fun of by my peers for no reason. I didn’t have many friends and the ones I did have were a bunch of shy, awkward introverts themselves. Not knowing why I was “hated” kept me from striving to go further. I liked to play in the “safe zone”. The comfortable spot where I did ok, but wasn’t spectacular. I’d been rejected so many times before, by peers, friends, boys, etc, that I was afraid to do anything that I wasn’t 100% positive I could do. It felt like any time I did take a risk I was almost always rejected, and every time would send me further and further into my shy, introverted shell.

This fear is affecting me more lately because I realize what I am doing is keeping me from being truly happy with life. I have so many plans, things that I want to do and projects I want to start. Things that I know, deep down in my heart, I’ll succeed at. But for whatever reason, I can’t seem to pull the trigger. I have this desperate need to feel independent, yet a crippling fear that I might fail if I take a risk.

It’s a vicious cycle, but it’s something that I’ve acknowledged and is something that I’m determined to get through. Without failure, I don’t learn. I don’t improve. If I refuse to take a risk, I’ll be stuck going through the motions of life instead of actually really living it.

I’m done with settling for what could have been and I’m going to start making these dreams a reality. I’m ready to take my life by the balls and stop denying myself of the things I want and deserve. It’s going to be hard and I might (*gasp*) fail at some point, but I feel like there’s no better time to do it than now.

I’m getting over this fear. Starting today.

Tags: failure, fears, the f word