Just a essay i did

Hii guys, so I made this text for a writing contest but I couldn't publish it there (max caracteres of the game was 2000 so I had to redo it) that I would like to share with you. The theme was "My biggest fear/regret"

Lungs are risky, Regret is scarier

People always tend to assume other people's biggest fears are something poetic and dramatic, mine is not. It's cricket. Mostly caused because they have something to jumping on me and make those weird sounds. And, unfortunately, my brain thought it would be funny to also have more random fears. Alongside crickets, it decided to collect more like they are Pokémon cards — Pneumotorax, Hemopneumotorax, having RH null blood type and anything related to my lungs not working properly. 

For a long time, I thought the fear was the biggest problem in my life, making me avoid things, delay decisions, and talked mostly to myself, because... what if I say something wrong? If something goes wrong? My body betrays me? What if I hypothetically end in a hospital bed instead of living my life like a normal person whose organs work properly? Anyway, the fear didn't ruin anything by itself. But the waiting did.

Over time, I noticed I wasn't only avoiding danger — I was avoiding experiences. Always skipping opportunities, staying quiet when wanting to speak — this part wasn't only fear, I have selective mutism so sometimes it just won't work — Not that this justifies anything — and I would always tell myself "later" so often it became "never". I was too busy avoiding disaster that in the middle of it all, I also forgot to live.

Regret is very sneaky if you look closely. It won't jump out at you like crickets. It sits down next to you slowly and then goes "so... do you remember that thing you wanted to do?" And then that's you when notice that have been years.

The irony is that being alive for itself is risky. Breathing is risky, trusting is risky, falling in love is risky. Having lungs at all apparently is risky. So avoiding everything didn't made me safer — it just made my world smaller.

Now I try to make decisions differently. Not perfectly, not fearlessly, but more honest. And then, when I hesitate, I just ask myself: Will future me be mad if I don't do this? Because fear may be loud but the regret is persistent. Fear screams. Regret whispers forever. 

I still hate cricket and side-eye my lungs daily. But my biggest fear isn't something medical or material. It's simply looking back and realizing I chose comfort over courage one too many times. And frankly? Regret scares me way more than a diagnosis or bugs (mostly) ever could.