Fears

So my parents went out of town for the week and I'm home by myself. Perhaps you aren't aware of this, but I happen to be a huge wimp (see Choose Your Own Adventure for more proof). My dad thinks it's funny to end a conversation on the phone when he and my mom are out of town by saying, "Oh and Claire? Don't forget to feed the man who lives in the woods!" Thanks Dad. It might not be so bad at night if our back room wasn't all windows with woods beyond our yard. But it is. Three walls and a ceiling of only windows. What happens in scary movies? You look out the window thinking you hear a noise, and then all of a sudden there's a face (sometimes masked, sometimes not) staring through the window directly at you. Well, at 6pm I was pretty fearless, and just wanted to circulate some air while I made dinner and cleaned up a little. So I opened up all of the windows and the sliding door.

Around 8 pm I decided to rearrange my brothers room. After I moved the bookshelf, the bed, the desk, and the little bedside table, it was dark out so I thought I should go find another lamp for my room. But when I got downstairs I realized that all of the windows were still open, and then saw that the basement door was wide open. I immediately thought, "did I open that? I don't leave doors open. Maybe I did though. Maybe Lucy [our cat] shoved it open to get her chubby little body downstairs...what if someone came in the screen door...maybe they're hiding in the base--no. Claire, you're being ridiculous. No one came in the house. Relax."

This is seriously what goes through my brain!! After a while, I went to bed and then couldn't fall asleep because I kept hearing noises that were probably my cat, but I was seriously contemplating going out and sitting in my car where at least I could get away if I needed to. But then I would have to go downstairs and possibly confront some crazed killer man, so I stayed in bed and eventually fell asleep.

Maybe it would be less scary for me if a few years ago when I was dogsitting across the street someone hadn't tried to come into the house while I was there, but they did. Luckily the dog went crazy barking and it scared them off. I already have fears about someone trying break in, so that just affirmed it for me. But we only have a cat, and she's not very scary to strangers...And I know I'm not the only one. A high school friend, Matt S., once told me that he hated going home at night because of his fears that someone would be hiding in the bushes next to his porch, so he would run as fast as he could and wouldn't be able to breathe again until he was inside with the front door slammed shut and locked. I have the same fears.

It's funny that we have these fears of people coming into our house, but then we continue to watch Law & Order, and Halloween, The Strangers and other scary movies. We continue to subject ourselves to shows and movies that feature gruesome deaths and murders, and then wonder why we are afraid to walk in the woods at night? I've stopped watching the scary movies, and know enough about myself to switch the channel if a Law & Order is too gruesome, and that's taken away much of my fears. But sometimes you want the scare, you want to jump, to grab onto your boyfriends arm and cower in his shoulder, have him hold you tight...and then you have to decide: is the scare worth it? Sometimes...but as for me? I'd rather cry laughing at something with my boyfriend then cry because I'm scared.