Sometimes I wonder why I am still
petrified of the dark and things that go bump in the
night, fifteen years on. Some would say that me finding my thick
blanket reassuring at the age of fifteen would make me either mentally
unstable or just a pussy, well perhaps I should choose all of the above, but its not my fault.
I remember ever since I was a kid, being scared not so much of what I think I know is out there, but what I don't know is out there. By not knowing, and not seeing, my tiny little mind tried to compensate by imagining what was out there. Unfortuneately for me, like every other little boy, I had an overactive imagination. The results had me thinking of things which brought nightmares for weeks to come (or until I thought up another equally scary thing).
As my mind raced I also got stuck on wondering who made those scary noises. All the scary sounds must have been created by something -- perhaps it was a five ton monster with warty, slimy skin and gigantic pincers for chopping young boys heads off (no, this is what was running through my head last night, not when I was little).
I don't really mind it any more as I can often cultivate the nightmares into interesting stories to write, or nodes for e2. It still makes me wonder whether I do have a loose screw or something like that, though. I think I will always be afraid of the dark, of being alone, exposed in an environment with low visibility -- but its not so bad, just another bump in the rollercoaster they call life, I guess.