FEAR

Jer'Maine Montiel
Nov 4 · 7 min read

two years ago it felt like i cracked the code.

i called myself “untouchable.” after decades of awkwardness and uncertainty about my self, i planted my feet and declared freedom. i felt renewed, rebirthed. i thought i was doing everything right, and that was the very last thing i needed to take care of before i could truly fly. it was a great sentiment, if not a complete lie.

maybe “lie” is a strong word. i don’t think i was lying to myself in that moment. it was just that that’s what was at the forefront of my mind for so long. i was loved but after that it felt like i could seek love, the more intimate one, the one i craved. my spirit danced with another soon after that, and i told myself that i understood love. another “lie.” another analysis and intellectualizing of a situation i found myself in. i didn’t write that for me at all; it was an attempt to show that, “hey wait, i get it! i really do! i’m okay! but please come back.” i can’t look at those words again and not feel like a total dick, because after all that i still wanted to find the fatal flaw, the bug that caused the runtime error. a fool’s errand.

i turned more inward: what did i do wrong? was i too clingy and overbearing? i’d want to message them a lot. i’d ask them how it was going, did this feel okay, were they still enjoying this time together. in my attempts to be honest and open, it may have just been suffocating. i’ll never really know why but if i know me as well as i say, i’ve always kinda been a daydreamer; a thinker. my fatal flaw is that i’m never truly present, because i’m afraid. in more ways than one.


i fear pain.

when i was really young, my dad got in a pretty bad accident. our car was parked on the side of the freeway, it was nighttime. we’d had a flat or something, and my dad goes out and tries to fix the problem. next thing he knows he’s up in the air, and comes crashing down onto the concrete. my mom tells me i cried so much and so loud. when he got out of the hospital he had to get false teeth put in, and surgery done on his leg.

from then on i worried so much about my family’s well-being. my grandmother was a diabetic, and i’d watch her check her blood sugar and give herself insulin shots to the hip. i learned how to use the machine and what the readings meant. i wondered if i’d ever get it.

my dad was a Gulf War vet also. my siblings and i never wanted for anything, and were actually kind of spoiled. but i’ve always had a point of contention with that, because it felt as though it was at the cost of his health, physically and mentally. like a lot of people, he did it for money; he wanted the “American dream” of a family. he hopped across the ocean and fought another man’s war. he was discharged because of his health, his consolation prize being a brain tumor that he’s not comfortable with removing. he tells me he’s fine, and that he “knows how my ass gets,” and that’ll probably never change.


i fear death.

in high school, after my parents divorced and we moved with my mom to my grandparents house, i woke up one night from a dream where everything was black and i saw the faces of my family members, one by one, fading into the distance. i ran downstairs and asked my grandmother, “what am i gonna do when you’re gone?” you often reassure the kids that you “aren’t going anywhere” and that you’ll be around for a very long time. after that i had my first therapy session with a psychologist. i don’t remember much of it now, but i don’t think it sufficed.

last year i’d begun to fall into some of the old, unhealthy patterns to get past whatever emotions i had. they were all over the place, i made phone calls drudging up memories and trying to talk out whatever i was feeling at that moment. i was at a friend’s house when that happened, and i cried and told them that it always felt like i was running from death. being queer and having some issues around sex, it felt like a matter of time before i caught HIV, something i was afraid of despite taking every precaution to be safe and aware.

later that night and into the next few days it was like the weirdest waking dream. i remember just about every detail of it. at the end of it i was in the hospital where my dad and aunt came to meet me, my friend took me there. i went back home to Mississippi for about three weeks after that happened, got into some therapy sessions and tried to just slow the hell down and get some sleep. i hung out with my grandparents while there, my grandmother going to doctor’s appointments and getting chemo delivered to the house. she assured me she was fine.

before she died this past January, she wanted to know if i would be okay. what happened to me scared everyone. i laid on my bed where she slept while they visited me, and she reassured me that i was doing fine. i’d find the love i wanted and needed, just keep doing good and working hard. and that if she knew that i would be okay, then she would be okay. i cried to her and apologized for never calling as often as i may be should have, for always being in my head. she understood, but i hated myself.

before she took the trip to houston, to try one last time to alleviate herself of cancer, she just knew she wasn’t going to come back. it shook the fuck out of me.


i fear the unknown.

i grew up a non-denominational Christian. i never thought too much about it until it started to conflict with who i was, and the world telling you what you feel is wrong. somewhere around high school and the divorce we didn’t go to church that much anymore, but i at least felt that i’d gotten out of it what i needed and that it was more a foundation for my morality.

i remember i did an informative speech in my class while attending community college. i chose to talk about religion, but don’t remember exactly why and i don’t think it was for that reason. i looked at the big three religions of the world — Christianity, Judaism, and Islam — and began to draw the parallels between them. i recall the instructor getting very antagonistic about what i was saying, and i was steadfast ’cause i was the one that did the research. i also remember my grandmother not really taking a liking to Islam, name-dropping Louis Farrakhan. i understood that people had their beliefs, and years later i understood that people can have those beliefs but another being staring you in the face with their story should ultimately challenge you to try and rethink them.

every person on this planet is born into a story, and has one themselves. we trust our eyes and ears and the people we’re birthed to, to protect us. and it may not happen for everyone, but there might come a time where something happens and everything is just flipped on its head: like nothing is real, and everything is made up. you’ve been at the whims of the world this whole time. it could be tragedy that triggers it, or feeling like you just know too much and you feel a little crazy now. religion and spirituality attempts to give you a foothold, through these stories and teachings and philosophizing about human existence. i don’t know that i can be fully religious anymore, but i try my damndest to keep a spirituality, and i feel as though Buddhist philosophy gets it mostly right — absent of all of the fundamentalist baggage of other teachings. these deaths and rebirths we have in our minds and bodies are consequence of things being out of alignment. our focus leads to the right thoughts, feelings and actions we should have.

focus — being present — is something that i’ve never really been great at. and my mind just drifts into the spaces between, pondering and pondering and wanting to know. like i don’t know enough already, and scaring the shit out of me in the process.


the one thing most people ever want is understanding, whether it’s of themselves, of the world, or especially from other people. and my fear is manifestation of that lingering uncertainty about it all: will i or my loved ones be able to live through this pain? what really comes on the other side of death, if anything at all? in this great big universe, will i be okay with not knowing how it all works? death is going to come, but can i survive until then? i have my family, my friends, but is that enough for me?

there might actually be two constants in this world: change, and the “illusion of time.” that sounds rather paradoxical, and it is. change comes through time, and we know that time has passed because of our perception and memories, but we’re only ever in the present. and that’s where we should always try and remain. my fatal flaw is that i’d rather try and understand all of what i feel and perceive, because i fear not getting it right, instead of just letting things be and come and go — instead of being present. i planted my feet and declared freedom, but i was still tied to the earth. i thought i was flying, but i wondered why i was still stuck around these trees. it’s because i wasn’t flying. and i’m in a forest. surely that should’ve been obvious, you know-it-all.

Jer'Maine Montiel
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