Quatre ans

I cannot believe I am in Paris.

Fears confronted today:
* Heights
* Depths
* Stairs (or falling down them)
* Small spaces
* Small spiraling stair cases
* Death/dead
* Confrontation

Today, we visited the Catacombs. There is no way to describe the feeling of being around so much death. There is also no way to accurately portray the exact level of anxiety experienced by a person afraid of basically every aspect of the catacombs.

A sign at the entrance warned those of weak constitution to be aware of the amount of steps, the 1.7km distance to be traveled, the overwhelming sensation of being surrounded by dead bodies and also that the space was very small.

After paying the 3.5Euro entry fee (Discounted as we are both under 26) we proceeded down a small, spiraling stair case. There were 160 steps to go down. The space was about 70cm wide. There was a hand rail on one side only. 20 steps in, I began to feel so anxious that I was considering telling R that I would need to exit NOW! I 'pulled over' to let some other English speaking people pass (They had odd sounding Australian accents - I think they may have been from Adelaide). I took a deep breath and carried on. I had wanted to see the catacombs and I was going to.

On we went. More stairs, more spiral, dizzy, breathless (combination of undesirable fitness level and sheer panic). It was dark, damp and there was an odd odour. Again, wanted to run back to the surface. We had nearly reached the bottom of the stair case. Panicked. Self talk helped.

Agnes: "WTF AM I DOING? GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
Agnes: "Calm down. Take a deep breath. Think about this rationally."
Agnes: "Rationally? It's irrational that I even considered doing this!"
Agnes: "Probably... But consider this: To exit here, you'll have to walk up 160 stairs. If you wait, there's only 80 stairs at the end of the 1.7km"
Agnes: "FINE!"

So on we walked (R and I, not me and the voices).