One. Death and dying.
Two. Breast cancer and all cancer.
Three. Flying. Whenever I fly I always sit next to my son and so far he's OK with that. But if there's any kind of turbulence or I start to get a little bit white knuckled he just sort of looks over a bit just smiles, just just a grin.
Four. That I'm messing up my kid. My birth father is black, was black. He died in 2010. And I met him when I was probably 22 or 23. And so we had a brief relationship and it got very intense very quickly for me and I needed to do my life. And when I was ready to reconnect after I had a son, he died. It's a regret that I live with. We were each other's sole black relatives, you know, that we had in the world and we needed each other in a very very -kind of in a very visceral sense -and he to me. I thought him coming into my life would be a lot easier. And it felt, I panicked. I didn't know how to suddenly be his daughter and I have to I have to I have to be very mindful to not overcompensate. The other day, we were talking about --because now we're looking at high schools and what's really important for me and I think should be important for any parent regardless of race and ethnicity is that they have teachers and role models of color. And my son said you know what, why do I need to have necessarily all black and people of color as role models. I said look because if you have only white role models you'll grow up thinking that the best thing to do and be is white. And and he said but I see a lot of you know role models of color and I said name three and he said our friend Amisa our friend Carin and you. And the next day I said to my husband I said I don't think I realized that I am enough for my son.
Five. Being able to feel the feeling of missing people I love after I die.
Six. Nuclear war. Just pshoooo, this mushroom and everybody's gone.
Seven. Masses of moving insects.
Eight. The ocean.
Nine. The dentist.
Ten. Losing my mind. You ever see that movie Phenomenon? With John Travolta and Kyra Sedgwick in which he just starts to get more and more brilliant every day, like he can he can suddenly solve the Rubik's Cube and you know write operas and it is revealed that the reason he becomes brilliant more and more every day is because he's dying. So I also think about that that oh I feel like I'm getting smarter only because my mind's about to say:You're done.
My name is Rebecca Carroll. And these are 10 things that scare me.
