"The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most"

Today I faced one of my biggest fears: donating blood.

I hate blood, I hate needles, and I would hate to be the 6'1" 270-pound man that passed out at the blood drive. Plus, the last time I had someone stick a needle in me to draw blood, I almost broke the needle in my bloodstream, which would have killed me in seconds. Not exactly an experience that makes me want to try to give it another shot.

But, as with most things that happen to me, my roommate walked into my room and said "let's go donate some blood." For whatever reason, he was more terrified than I was and was moving around the room like a rabbit that had just gotten a hold of a can of Amp. He almost had to drag me downstairs, but I eventually went willingly--the entire time regretting that I hadn't brought my stuffed friend Leon with me.

My roommate wound up almost passing out, a fact that I didn't learn until I was sitting on the table. And this was his idea! But today I learned two very important things:

1) I love my roommate, but he is terrible emotional support. A word to the wise: never say "oh God, that's a big needle" to your clearly-terrified friend, even if you are joking. It turns out that he really wasn't joking, it was huge.

2) Sometimes facing your fear isn't nearly as hard as you think.

I'm a very dependent person. I get these intense fears that I'm going to fail if I go into things alone, and that somehow just having someone beside me will make everything okay. But the truth is, sometimes it's possible to face your fears on your own. I didn't need someone laying on the table next to me, going through the same experience with me. It was okay that there was just someone on the sidelines, trying really hard but failing miserably at giving me "moral support."

Take a chance and do something that you never thought you could do. Put yourself out there for once, and you may find that it's really not as awful as you think. You might even enjoy it.

You might even want to do it again.