Marvelous Fear

I was in a car on a dark night with my high school boyfriend Al listening to the radio. Cuban boats had just been warned away from the American shore. For the first time in my life, I felt terror. There was a shore in my life that wasn't safe.
This was the first time I realized that the world was not a safe place and that my life could end violently.
I remember the safe feeling inside the car, the anchor of a warm body next to me. Thoughts flashed like 10-second ads in my head. I will never have sex. I will never have children.
But the fear was bigger than that. It was the possibility that everything I knew could end, maybe within the half hour it took for the Cuban boats to decide whether or not to turn back.
How much, really, was "everything?" I recall being outside of myself and marveling at my ability to cope with this fear. It wasn't groveling fear, it was marvelous fear.
I learned a lot that evening about the stuff I was made of. The fear peaked at about the time that acceptance set in. What will be, will be.