Irrational Fear

I have a big, irrational fear. It haunts my dreams, causing me to startle awake frequently. I am so very afraid of Grizzly bears! Irrational, right? Kooky, to say the least. But, it is a bonafide fear of mine. I grew up in "grizzly country", in the Pacific Northwest, near a national park known as a grizzly habitat. On more than one occasion I have had to leave an area because a bear had been spotted. I've never had any up close experience with bears, I just grew up knowing you don't mess around with them. No feeding them marshmallows like the tourists. What happens when you empty the bag? Then you start to look like a big, fluffy marshmallow and the bear eats you! I remember vividly being up on a mountainside, picking huckleberries (huckleberries are this delicious little purple berry that only grows at a certain elevation and latitude, they're the coolest! And in the PNW they are a hot commodity.) which are grizzlies favorite treat, and having this guy come barreling down the mountain, telling us to get the heck out of there, he'd just been run off by a grizzly. In that situation, the car seems miles away. Everything goes in slow motion and you hope you're wearing pampers. Ever read the book, Night of the Grizzlies? On a single night in Glacier Park, two women were killed by two different grizzlies. That will scar a kid for life, obviously. Now, as a grown up, I have a little cabin in the woods on a mountain, very rough. We have a bear problem and now I'm afraid to go up there! This bear keeps climbing up the side and breaking through the window to our cabin. It can't be a very big bear, but it's obviously strong, it can bite through campbell's soup cans! I grew up in the mountains and still spend time there, but can't shake my fear of bears. You'd think a change of locale would be in order, but then we'd have to talk about sharks.