Fear

Everyone has a fear. Even if they say there not afraid of anything they are probably afraid of being humiliated or embarrassed. Other fears could be something like The Dark or high up places. Or perhaps death or illnesses. You could have a fear of living things like bugs or snakes. There are even people who find a reason to be afraid of anything, like potatoes, or bowls.

The whole reason we’re in Thailand is the beach and the rainforest. We also wanted to try something new. You might be wondering how fear relates to this. Around the gulf of Thailand is the home to a creature so deadly they are responsible for 20-40 deaths a year, which is more than the amount of fatal world wide shark attacks every year. The Box Jellyfish. I am afraid of jellyfish in general but the Box Jellyfish being the big daddy of them all freaks me out. Luckily, we are staying in another area far away from the gulf.

On our first day at the beach here there was a dead jellyfish brought in by a crab who was eating it. Most people would think that dead jellyfish are harmless but there wrong. Unlike snakes or animals that need to bite you to inject there venom jellyfish need only to brush against you for you to feel their pain and wrath. Dead jellyfish are still perfectly capable of that. My panicking resulted in a waste of breath, because turns out it was a mauve jellyfish. Though it would hurt (horribly) to be stung, mauve jellyfish pose no real threat to humans.

Today we went to a beach to go snorkeling, when someone said “hey, I saw a couple jellyfish over there by the rocks.” I almost lost my head. But I went in anyway. We we’re making our way to the deeper part of the rock when I saw a small-ish blob in the water. I had to go. My feet flew out of the water and I ran back on to the sand. I’m not positive whether it was a jellyfish or not.

My fear held me back from doing what I enjoy, and I deeply regret that. We’re not really living if we live in fear.

-Hattie