I recently talked of Mooter being so much like me it’s scary. What I failed to mention is how much that worries me more than scares me.

This site (and the variations before it) was created as a vehicle to help me, and others like me, talk through fears in hopes of getting over them. I have also recently mentioned I am 30. The 30’s is the time everything is supposed to start clicking and you take that long, hard look in the mirror, notice the few strays of gray hair beginning to pepper, and say to the person staring back at you, “Okay. Time to grow up now.” And you’re not just saying it to give yourself a pep talk. You really believe it and want it more than anything. It’s not the dress rehearsal of your 20’s. This is opening night. Curtains up. Break a leg.

I felt the wave of realization in my late 20’s. By late I mean I had only hours before I turned 29. What I hated more than anything in my realization was understanding I had indeed been a hindrance to myself. Everything I’d wanted or desired was easily done had I wanted it bad enough and stopped telling myself “I can’t”. I’d been told on multiple occasions this was a quality so blaringly obvious, it wasn’t understood how I missed it. People can tell you they see your problem when they’re not the ones going through it. There isn’t much thought in watching a television show or movie, seeing the killer on the other side of the door and yelling at the girl on the other end not to be an idiot and open that door because there’s a killer on the other end, and can’t you see you big idiot! then OOOOOOOHHHHH as she gets a knife check to the gut. You’re oblivious to the fact that she can’t hear the creepy piano trill in the score, or the repetitive bass line. Has she NOT seen a scary movie before? Doesn’t she know what happens when you fall down while a psycho maniac wielding a machete and thrift store Halloween mask comes barreling down an abandoned campground, clawing at your ankles? DOESN’T SHE?! Gawd!

Mooter was born afraid. Afraid of shadows. Afraid of dust. Afraid of rain. Afraid of noise. Her favorite phrase is “I can’t”. Even as I’m showing her she can, she goes down with the Titanic in a resounding “But I caaaaannnnnnnn’t!”, then “Oh!” when she realizes the opposite is happening. Cause and effect have not yet formed in her developmental skills. She does not know that saying “I can’t” yet, look at that, I did it means I probably shouldn’t say “can’t” anymore because now I’ve got a big hole where my foot should be and, yep, there I am holding the gun. Figures.

All this would mean Booger would have to be fearLESS. And she is. At times we want to take a trip to City Hall just to change the name on her birth certificate to “no, no”. To say no, no to a two-year-old only once would mean you’re either dead or have given up and this same two-year-old is sitting in your lap twirling gum in your hair while you aimlessly stare into space, puddles of drool streaming from your lips. No, no is expected. No, no is a birth right.

To be told “no, no” by a two-year-old is cute at first in a Oh, look isn’t that cute, she’s imitating us kind of way. To be mocked, laughed at and have your words turned into a sing-songy chant is most certainly a one way ticket to a cold, deep grave. Booger doesn’t seem to mind if her residency made a drastic change underneath a pile of dirt. She loves that dirt, what are you saying? She and that dirt have play dates scheduled from now until at LEAST 2010.

Two opposing sides of polarity bring a split in the universe. Should I fail in giving my first born life lessons to overcoming fear, I am comforted knowing her little sister will pick up the slack. Whether she’s asked to or not.