SONYA:

Stand by. I'm turning off my car. I'm gonna mute you because I can hear you. Okay perfect.

Number one. Dying with no trace.

Number two. Swimming in deep black water. At one point, I was like swimming in a gorge with some friends and I was like, I have to get out. 

I'm so worried about my breath getting in the way of the microphone.

Number three. Spiders. In my house, I am the designated spider killer. Here's an example of a situation. This happened just last night. I went upstairs. I saw the culprit and I was like, which shoe is going to be the best one to smash this sucker? I went over the spider and um it started scurrying away from me. So I was like, that's cool. I was tracking it and I like was about to bring the shoe down and right before the shoe hit the spider, it reversed direction towards me and I screamed like this crazy guttural scream. But then everybody downstairs was like, are you okay? And I was like, I’m fine. It was just a spider.

Four. Running into my old boss.

Number five. My father's suicide. So because my mom wasn't around when I was growing up, she was deemed unfit to parent, my father assumed sole custody of me and raised me from when I was four until now. Self-sufficiency was really important, I think, you know he never had a partner. He never remarried and he's still alone. And he said to me, now that he is older, if he ever is diagnosed with some kind of debilitating or terminal illness, he would absolutely take his own life because he does not want to be a burden. He's talked about walking into the forest and quote, "letting nature take its course." And you know there’s a little part of me that wonders if he kind of enjoys knowing that I worry about this. Hi, Dad. 

Number six. Repeating the same patterns as my parents. God, I'm thinking of like very early on when I would take my daughter, who looks very much like me, and when I look at her, I just see myself as a child. When I would drop her off for daycare, she would cling to me and she would say, don't go. Don't leave me. I can remember with my, with my own mom just that feeling of not wanting her to go and and then my rational mind would say, this is so different. You're going to a job. You're going to see her tonight. It's not the same situation. But my, my child self would say, don't leave her. You can't leave her. You can't do this. 

Oh my God. It’s so hot in here. Ok.

Number seven. The dark.

Number eight. Dying in a car accident.

Number ten. Oh wait.

Number nine. Active shooters. My kids are eight and six and they don't know yet why they do the lockdown drills and they told me recently that some kids are like silly and loud when they, when they do those drills and you know there was part of me that wanted to say like, "It’s really important that you be quiet and that you practice those drills because..." But I'm not ready, I'm not ready to say that yet. I don't know why it feels okay for me to say, "Put your seatbelt on because my brother died in a car accident." Somehow that's not as bad to me than like saying, "Someone might come in your class and shoot you."

Number ten. Allowing evil to become normal. I don’t know. I think I just need to be reminded. We can't, we can't give up. I'm saying that to myself. I have to keep going. You have to keep doing. You have to keep trying. 

I'm unmuting.

This is Sonya Edelman and these are ten things that scare me.