A Hannan went to sea sea sea...

In my last blog I introduced the first in a series I have since entitled "Fear is the heart of Hannan". Last time it was all about spiders. Here is the next fear I am unpicking right before your eyes in the hope that I will conquer one more afraid-maker and draw one step closer to being indestructible, undeniable and irrevocable.

Picture the scene. A handsome girl in a wetsuit hobbles across a pebbled beach, her face contorted in pain as she makes her way down the stony gauntlet towards the sea. She tenderly tiptoes into the waves and slowly slowly wades deeper and deeper into the ocean. Before too long she is up to her chin in the salty seaswift, bobbing up and down amongst the seaweed and seashells.

Not that amazing a story. Except the girl was ME. And I have a fear of the ocean.

Aquaphobia (Fear of water)

Well, I'm afraid of water in general. Don't get me wrong, I have showers and baths and drink water from the tap, use it to wash things in, I agree it's vital, but I have a fear of masses of water. I can't put my face or head under water because I'm too worried that my breathing reflex will continue and I'll breathe the water in, deep into my lungs. Even when washing my face in the sink or shower I have to take a gigantic breath and go in veryveryquickly, cleancleanclean and quickly out *EXHALE*.

And to make things worse, in the exact same seaside scenario at the same beach a year ago, The Boy thought it a reasonable gesture to hold me down as a big wave crashed over me. I didn't have time to breathe, I had salt in my eyes, salt in my mouth, in my lungs, in my veins. It was a living nightmare.

You see, when I was a smaller Hannan and had to go to school without being paid, I had to go to swimming lessons at the local leisure centre. We started out in the baby pool, which is much warmer than the grown up pool and obviously much shallower. We had a great tine, blowing bubbles out our gobs, using floats and kick kick kicking, playing mermaids, being warm and lovely. We were a family. But then...graduation day came and we were told that if we passed the swimming test we could upgrade to the grown up pool, where we would be WITHOUT floats and in the COLD water...

No deal.

My cleverbrain went into overdrive to concoct a plan and on 'judgement day', I climbed into the baby pool and demonstrated an epic fail in swimming. I slithered around in the water, kicking all over the place like a baby lamb being born. The plan worked. They thought I couldn't swim and thus, I got to stay in the baby pool an extra year. BOOM.

(As a result however, I never actually learnt good swimming skills and thus cannot swim confidently or effectively, ergo I have a fear of water and assumne it is trying to drown me)

The ocean terrifies me not just because I'm a weak swimmer, it holds many dangers of which I am well aware. I've watched Jaws, I've watched Free Willy, Titanic, Open Water, I've watched Finding, Nemo, HELLO? There is nothing good in the ocean, only bad, scary things. (And if you've ever been to Blackpool, there's more than big fish out to get you in them waters, let me tell you).

One day I'm going to swim around the world, as it's the only way to conquer my fears. But until then, I'll put my jelly shoes on and tiptoe into the waves to paddle, swim in the baby pool at the leisure centre and NEVER go walking by a canal at night.

Love Hannan xx

P.S. I really did get neck deep into the ocean last week, and The Boy was as good as gold, he didn't drown me once! Of course, there was no swimming, just standing on the ocean floor but neck deep is the necks step to swimming the channel.

Spideyphobia: A Tale of Eight Legs

I’m not sure why I’m afraid of things. There is a whole rainbow of things that cause me angst although I didn’t realize they were fears until now. I thought everyone felt nervous in certain scenarios until I found out from The Boy that I’m actually just a paranoid jelly! I’m going to have a ponder and a rummage through my fears over the next few blogs and try to work out why I have these irrational (or not so irrational) fears.

Let the discovery into my irrational unconscious commence…

Arachnophobia (Fear of spiders)

Oh man, there was a big black spider in my living room yesterday and now…gone. Where do they go? Into my knicker drawer perhaps? Disguising itself onto my hairbrush? The other week there was a sneaky spidey hiding amongst my necklaces hanging in my walk-in-wardrobe… he was hoping I’d put a necklace on and then he could crawl up my neck and into my mouth, BOOM. Not easily fooled though, I backed way slowly and got Crazy Meg to come in and suck him up (with the hoover, not her mouth). Hannan – 1, Sly spider – 0.

This other time, there was a giant spider (at first I thought it was a black crab actually) on the wall in the landing. I was whipping an egg in a jug and The Boy reached up and tried to get it (to throw it at me, probably) which made me freak out. As I ran away I spilt egg all over the carpet and had to move the sofa over the top so Crazy Meg wouldn’t find out and beat me.

Even while I’m sleeping I have ‘dreams’ where I open my eyes and there’s a spider next to my face. Every single time I jump out of bed and put the light on only to realize that of course, it’s too dark to see a spider and I was of course dreaming! I jump out of bed every time. I never learn.

So why am I scared of spiders? Why is anyone? As far back as I can remember I’ve hated them. I hate the way their knees are taller than their faces, I hate that they have four times as many running legs as me, I hate the fact that they are EVERYWHERE and that they wait until I’m out, or asleep to creep into position. I hacked into the internet to research this and apparently, a fear of spiders is so common because when we were dinosaurs, spiders could kill us with their evil little mouths and teeth and so in some people the fear is unconsciously there, reminding them to stay away.

From this I have concluded that my brain is super-efficient. It is protecting me! If I wasn’t so scared then maybe one day I would pick up a spider to give it a little kiss and then it could bite me on the lip, inject its poison and ‘oh snap, I’m dead’.

 I’ve heard that the average human eats 8 spiders in their sleep over their lifetime. Well firstly, I aint no average maverage. I’m Hannan and I’m eating NO spiders in my sleep, you can be sure of that. They know better than to try and slither into my gob. I have a loud scream and a crazy flatmate with a hoover.

So bring it on leggy…

Love Hannan xx

In Hannan's world, even the sunshine has a smiley face

Someone who teaches English as a JOB said to me yesterday that she hates rhyming poems. This inspired me so I wrote this for her...

I like upside down rainbows and slices of lemon and the curviest branch of an old warped tree

I like segments of oranges, crusts off a pizza, I like things that that look like they’re smiling at me

 

I like babies and old people, monkeys and children, and ladies up north in the shops and chippies

Of all of the alphabet, U is my favourite, I simply adore things that smile at me

I like upside down bridges, and slices of melon, and George in my photo frame here next to me
I like it when bubbles appear in my coffee in the shape of a face which is smiling at me!
 
I like bright paper chains looping down from the ceiling, moustaches that flick up make me feel happy,
My favourite smile is the man in the moon though, with his white crater face looking oh so jolly!

I like biting a jaffa cake, biting a baby bell, biting an eccles cake until I can see

A wonderful crescent appear right before me a, a tasty delicious treat smiling at me.


Love Hannan xx