'fraid of the dark
just to put this into context ill start this one off with my memoir from english:
When I was little, getting up in the pitch black of the night was a near death wish. I believed that when the sun went down, the robbers all came out; they were nocturnal.
Sometimes subtle noises would wake me up from my sleep. The moment I woke, everything in the night became exaggerated. My breathing was loud enough to wake the neighbourhood, my bed springs sounded like a fire alarm, even my quick heart beat could be heard from a mile away. The shadow of my jeans hanging over the door was a black-masked robber prepared to jump at my baby sister, and my Precious Moments figurines were set bombs, accompanied by the ticking of my bedside clock.
Once awake, I would begin to fear for my parents. I became convinced they had been stolen in their sleep. To ease my conscience, I somehow found the nerve to slink out of my bed, teddy bear in hand, crawl across the hall, and peek in at the two deep-breathing lumps in the bed. Assured my parents were still right next door, I once again worried for my own safety as I crouched exposed in the middle of the hallway. I could feel things breathing down my PJ shirt and spiders with their furry legs creeping across my toes. With a sudden surge of adrenaline, I raced the creepy crawly things and the heavy breathing monsters back into my bedroom. With my mind telling me of the robber crouching under my bed, I would run full tilt, spring into the air, out of the reach of the robber’s clawing hands, and bounce under my covers. Shaking like a leaf, I was always very determined to sleep soundly through the rest of the robber-infested night.
and now: five minutes ago. for the first time in a couple years....i ran from those same robbers/kidnappers/whatever you want to call them. the dark invaders of my night.
i was downstairs in my daddy's work shop, making lanar's president name tag...anyways. i finished, flicked off the light. and slammed the door behind me. then i got that same feeling i got when i was little...the feeling of monsters breathing down my neck. so i took the stairs three at a time (yes...that means two steps up to my bedroom floor and yes my short little legs can do that! they just needed a bit of encouragement) and bounded towards the light. runnnn towaaards the liiiighhht. and now behind this stupid screen...im safe. hallelujah amen!
posted by tarajoy at 10/02/2006 08:54:00 PM
6 Comments:
o gosh...then i went down again..cause i forgot to shut off the glue gun. you better appreciate this name tag dear elle belle! lol;)
oooh i still get that when i wake up sometimes... but that's more last year than this year. haha. i think i was more scared in my bunk bed because the robbers could hide more comfortably underneath. lol.
the storm lastnight woke me up. it's so different waking up to dark silence and waking up to dark noises with bright flashes.
did you have a storm too? ours was early early this morning, and i woke up and just lay there for a while. it was nice. and i became aware of the cars swishing outside after a while and in my half sleeping state worried about their safety from the constant lightning, and then i imagined what it was like to be outside, and tried to remember whether you were supposed to run or stay still (which?), and then i imagined what would happen if the lightning smashed through my window and me and my two cats sleeping on my feet would be blown away... it was sort of dream-thinking. once i felt our whole house shaking and rumbling from the thunder, i'm sure of it. it was eerie... i always feel as though i've lived twice as long when i wake up in the night.
and the flying leap onto the bed to avoid long grasping arms is such a paradigm of childhood. the thought of it makes laughter just well up inside of me... what athletic feats we accomplished through fear, hm?
wow, i didn't know my tag had such a history! Don't worry, I'll treasure it forever! I loved reading that part about when you were little. I could relate to everything. I would always check for my little sister's breathing, that my parents hadn't disappeared, and that there were monsters under my bed ready to grab at my little ankles before I lept into bed. But that was hard for me with a bunk bed and all that...
cooasta moota spoerta, tara, joya!
...people will never understand us again!
i always would do the same superman jump into bed to keep as much distance between me and ghoulies under the bed as possible.
and yes...sometimes i still get the creeps at night, even though i know it's my mind that invented the monsters and murderers. in fact that may be part of the reason- it's not the things that go bump in the night that make me shiver, it's the knowledge of what horrible things my mind is capable of imagining.
that being said...i'm not above leaving the hall light on occasionally
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