On Living with a Novelist: the Fear Factor

We’ve been married a long time and my husband and I have found equilibrium in our foibles, but he still gets impatient when I voice fear–particularly about things that aren’t likely to happen.

Some of that is our character–he’s a former steely-eyed killer of the deep, a professional military officer, a risk-taking businessman who trusts in the Lord.

I try to trust that God knows what He is doing with my life and where He is taking me.

I haven’t suffered many dramatic horrors, but you never know . . .

Of course I was a cub scout leader for seven years and with three Eagle Scouts in the family, spent 17 years being prepared. I understand how frustrating it would be to live with someone always fretting about “what-if” scenarios and trying to calculate how to escape situations that may never occur.

What’s my problem?

The answer came to me one day as we drove in San Francisco. The problem isn’t me, per se, but my profession. I’m a novelist. I’m supposed to dream up “what if” studies, ask questions and try to  twist a story to ratchet up the emotional component. I’ve got a program constantly running in my brain, wondering how to complicate my story line.  Whatever story line it is.

My husband didn’t buy the argument. “That’s ridiculous.”

Really?

What does he think about when he drives across the Golden Gate Bridge?

What an engineering marvel it is? What it felt like to ride a submarine underneath? How much paint they need to keep the color up? Wouldn’t it be nice to be sailing on the bay today?

Or perhaps he remembers the story he heard once of the commanding officer swept off a submarine and never seen again?

No. He never thinks of that sea story unless I bring it up.

Meanwhile, my brain flits through all sort of scenarios once I’m past  the marvel of, “people come from all over the world to view this bridge and I just see as a short cut to the airport.”

What if there’s an earthquake? What if one of these oncoming cars suddenly swerves into our fast lane? What would happen if one of the wire coils snapped? What would it feel like to fall through the air to the water below? Would the car float? How did that little girl slip under the railing and fall to her death? Has anyone ever been blown off the bridge? Do bikes ever run into each other on those blind spots around the base?

What would happen if the Fastrak responder didn’t work when we went through the toll booth? Would a police car come after us?

Sometimes the fog is down to the deck plates when we cross. What if we just drove off the end of the bridge without knowing it? What does it look like from above? Can you see the road or just hear it through the damp? How did our friend propose in the middle of the bridge? How would you get the ring back if it slipped out of your hand into traffic just as you proposed? And what if it was foggy?

You see?

Have any of those things ever happened–other than the poor Navy commander lost at sea? (My husband’s comment is always, “imagine the paperwork,” while I’m picturing instead the terror of the frigid water and unbeatable undertow).

Well, what do you think about when you cross the Golden Gate Bridge?

He still thinks I’m worrying needlessly, but I’m much less fearful now that I understand where the questions come from. I “worry” with a more detached point of view. If it’s just an exercise in novel writing, I don’t have to be afraid.

Besides, I remind myself the same God who numbers the hairs on my head knows when my days are going to end, whether in the fog over the Golden Gate or in my bed at home 30 years from now.

It’s not a “what if,” it’s a “when it’s time.”

And there’s nothing to be afraid of, resting in God’s hands, at all.

On this, my husband and I agree.