every child's fear

Most every child has an imaginary friend growing up, or two, or three, or a dozen. An imaginary friend is one of the best parts of childhood; always there when you want them, always everything you need them to be.
Most every child is also afraid of the dark.
Afraid of the monster under the bed.
The thing lurking in the corner.
The shadow on the wall.
The long dark hallway.
Why?
Why is the dark every child's fear? Why are there monsters where there should be none?
Because the dark isn't a thing. it's a nothing, and i think every child understands that monsters are really real, and that the things we don't know or understand can hurt us. A child at night understands just how small and insignificant they really are in the world.
They are made to live in the light, but at night, that's taken away, and we're left to ourselves, our imaginations, and our human fear.
But then we all grow up, and we explain away our fears, and we develop an egotistical and overinflated sense of self worth, that we're bigger than we really are, and nothing can hurt us, that we're far more important in this world than we really are.
Other's live their entire lives in fear. maybe not fear of the dark or fear of monsters, but fear, fear of loosing this job or that relationship, fear of this boss or that friend.
Fear of never measuring up to other's expectations, of never being good enough, of never achieving enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, not athletic enough, not beautiful enough, not strong enough.
never being the perfect spouse, never being the perfect christian, the perfect son, the perfect daughter, the perfect brother, sister, or friend.
For some of us the monsters never really go away, they just.. change form.
But monsters are always monsters.
fear is like a seed, if you don't cut it, it will grow, and it will fester, day in and day out, until it's riding on your back holding the reigns
The thing about monsters is they can always be tamed. I'm quite good friends with my imaginary monsters that lurk in various places around the house at night, sometimes i like to meet up with them and have tea together, you know, catch up and reminisce about reading 'frankenstein' and 'dr jekyle and mr hyde' when i was only six.
as far as all my other fears go, well, i know i don't have to be strong enough, there are others to help bear that burden.
i'm not afraid to loose this job or that one, god's never failed me yet, and i doubt he'll start now.
i'm human, i'm never gonna be perfect on this side of death. actually, i can't really tell you how to conquer fear and move on couragously, haven't quite got the hang of it myself yet, and that's ok. i'll tell you all if i do figure it out.
but whatever you do, don't let it rule you. get help if you have to. it's never a good thing to live in fear.
so no, there's no real closure to this topic for me, i haven't lived long enough or seen enough of life to really understand much about overcoming fear.
but from what i do know and i have seen, we're all just children pretending to be adults, and none of us really knows what's going on, cause none of us can see the big picture.
and in the end we all have monsters that we never got rid of, just don't let them control you. they're hard to get back under control.