Day 28: When the night comes, I tremble with fear.

It is pretty obvious at this point I am going through some things. Most of them are in the deep caverns located only in my mind and others are out in the real world. Unfortunately I cannot blatantly say what either are. No, I am not considering suicide and no, me and Cal are very, very happy. I just go down a dark path every now and again. Sometimes I come back to the light a little quicker than others. This time it has been a hard and rocky road…if even it was a road, path, avenue, whatever.

Lately, I have discovered that when it gets dark or when it gets late, I become afraid. Not so much of the dark. I am afraid of sleep. Lets back up for a moment, shall we? As a child, I was always afraid of the dark. There were monsters in the dark. Even after my Uncle forced me to watch Nightmare on Elm Street II, I would not sleep with some appendage hanging off the bed or with the closet doors open lest something grab me and drag me away. As I entered into my teenage years, the whole “stay totally on the bed” thing remained but the things in the dark that scared me changed. I was afraid of some stranger waking me from my sleep. If I kept my eyes open in the dark, I would imagine horrible things coming into view and murdering me or dragging me off…half alive. Noises didn’t help. Shadows didn’t either.

Cal used to laugh at me and Number Twenty Two years ago. Both of us had the same habit. If we had to shut the light off and walk across a room in the dark, we would flip the switch and race across the room like something was after us. Thinking about it while not experiencing it seems crazy, I know but its not. I don’t know about our son but for me, it was a very real fear and it did not feel good. Your blood becomes hot as your heart races and forces it through your veins the very second the sound of the “flip” from the light switch would reach your ears. Fight or flight ensues and you take off running, trying to race darkness out of the room. Obviously one never wins that race because you are running through the room which darkness has already enveloped. Loser. Once you get to where you are going; be it the other door, the bed, the couch, whatever, the fear leaves you. Only, it is not so easily spat out. It gradually leaves. While it only takes a few seconds to return to normal, your inner self notes that it seems a great deal longer than that. Even after spending four decades on this planet and am fully aware of what can and cannot be in the room as well as knowing what will go bump, it still does not help. There are certain rooms that I will still flip the switch and run. Dark and I are simply not friends. We never have been. Looks like never will be. (Hrmm, maybe I will be forced to roam this earth forever, hiding not in the shadows but in the light. I wonder if this makes me one of the “angels” that play with babies when they are first born? Ah, I digress. That, dear readers, is a story for another day.)

Back to the dark.

I am not sure words would suffice to describe how I feel when the sun sets. Its primordial fear. Pure and absolute. I want to run screaming into the night and never return but where would I go and what would I do when I outran that fear? That is scary all by itself. I feel the blood rush through every single vein in my body. Almost like I am becoming self aware or something. My heart begins to race and then sets itself to cruise control until I am able to make myself go into a fitful sleep. Sometimes, I have a beer or two to help me become drowsy. Sometimes I take a migraine pill. (Yea, I have a script for these people, I am NOT a pill junkie.) Anything I can do to force myself to sleep. It is not that I am NOT sleepy, I am just afraid of what dreams will bring or what the last thought which enters into my head will be. I have been having very vivid dreams as of late. Most of them relate to my novel. That is ok, The really good ones stick with me and I get them on paper before they vanish from my memory but the other things are what haunt the voices in my head. Horrible, vivid premonitions. Evil laughter and murderous visions.

It is simply not fair. Sometimes I think, the fear of the dark is a cakewalk compared to this. Not only does it make me afraid of myself and whatever is creating this discomfort for me, it makes me sad. I find it hard to describe to my family what is going on and when I just refer to it as “whatever is going on in my brain” they just go “Oh, that.” Its alright. They are not being callous or cold. They are just tired of seeing me torture myself like this and want it to be better. Only, nobody knows how.

I am not one to go to the doctor for such things and I am certain they will just give me some sort of medication to “make it all better” but I don’t want to be medicated. I just want it to go away. Its like smoking. Just. Flippin. Quit. I know its hard. For me, even eleven years later, I still chew the hell out of a pen when we go on road trips. But I have not had a cigarette, have I? Nope. Any crutch or debilitating “feeling” is going to leave its mark on you. That is just life. You just try to live with it.

At work, when it gets busy, we all talk about “Once more….into the breach! AAAAHHHHGGGGGHHHH!!!!”  This is exactly how I feel with ever sunset. I don’t see it getting any better any time soon. Now that I have put this out there, I think I should take it like that. Face my fear. Fight it. Run into the breach, rifle above your head, screaming….into the night.

Out run the darkness. Face your fear. Grab it and make it yours.

That is the ONLY WAY!

What do YOU think?

Day 20: Alarming. Isn't it?

About a month ago, my husband happily got a new phone. It is always fun to explore the phone setting and see what ring tones and alarms it has. While you can download ringtones and noises to suit your personality, getting a new phone is "like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get." (credit Forrest Gump, of course!) This particular phone makes me want to shoot the world when the alarm goes off. 

Let us take a step back for a moment. I used to have a lovely "Good morning! Bing Bing Bing. Good morning!" song on my phone. While it was grating, it was not terribly annoying or shake you out of sleep type of thing. It was just bad enough to make you want to get up and at least move around. That is the point of an alarm clock isn't it? To get your azz out of bed to start the day? My Cal hated that alarm. I believe I now know why.

In anticipation of doing the sheeple thing, by that I mean, waking up on time or even a little earlier so I do not have to rush to get everyone ready for the day, I set two alarms. One that is not so annoying and then the real one thirtyish minutes later. It is during that second alarm that my Cal's phone goes off. That alarm of his sounds like some catholic boys choir has suddenly caught the holy ghost and they are really flippin happy about it. It also sounds like they are conveying to you that the train is awake and is chugging happily away down the track, in open space, at full speed. "Goooood morning! Good morning! OH. OH! Good morning! Good good good morning! OH! OH!"  It starts right up in the middle of the happy crappy and will make you stand straight up from a horizontal position. I sleep pretty hard sometimes but that damn alarm does it every stinking time. To make matters worse, Now that I have been jarred awake, I look at my dear soul mate and he is just laying there....snoring away....like nothing has happened. 

That makes me want to shoot up the moon too. (Speaking of that, how in the heck can I do that. Really. The moon is made of cheese and full of holes already. Wait. Maybe someone already did that for me long ago. Poo, taking the fun out of being grumpy absolute first thing in the morning. Grr. Grumpier already and coffee is not even made. I digress.) I am already standing up and now have to look for his phone because he obviously is NOT going to turn that damn choir off. I got it babe. I find it. After much consideration, I turn it off. The phone lives to see yet another day. 

In the fashion of my peeples, I will do the same again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. At least every day after that until the phone dies a mysterious death. We won't talk about that right now. It will never accidentally die on purpose maliciously, will it? Never.

Off to get coffee. At least it is quiet. (Oooh! Imagine if I made coffee with red bull instead of water? THEN turn that alarm on. I bet I could SEE the choir then!  **Micaa shudders**)

What do YOU think?

Day 18: Once More, Into the Breach

After four decades on Terra Earth, I have fome to an understanding. Every world has a separate set of fears for each soul which comes to visit. The visitors never know what the fears are and have to figure it out on their own. This is a higher level of consciousness that many never achieve.

I came to this understanding at sometime during the last twenty-four hours.

Stephen King tried to convey this level of consciousness in a series that was published over a span of thirty years. In the Dark Tower, Roland Deschain (The Gunslinger,) comes to face his own fears while an inhabitant of Middle Earth on his Journey along the Beam to the Dark Tower. Essentially it is similar to my plight. Every day, he goes...into the breach.

For me the breach is dark. I am afraid of the dark. Even as a child, the dark was not one of my favorite times. I tjought oily t strange because I loved to star gaze. Well, maybe that is not so strange because the stars illuminate the dark.

Every night, I prepare myself. I have no choice...to enter into the darkness. It's not so bad when I am dog tired. I just turn the light off, run to the bed and pass out. Nothing to face, fight or fear. Its different when I am alone with my thoughts.

The voices are always long gone when it becomes trench warfare.  They desert me and retire to their havens in the library of my mind. I am. Utterly. Alone. This may be ok for a Squidward or such but I am not such a creature. Besides, he had light when he was alone.

While in the warzone, this dark, my brain becomes clever and cruel. I begin to think about things that are horrible and destructive. The digressions are NEVER announced. They are all random and seldom humorous. While the thoughts and images which race through my mind, they never stop for conversation and it is never pleasant. The chaos make me tired and hurts my being. It. Never. Stops. There is no one to ask: what do YOU think?

Yes, some of my ideas come to me during these moments but many of them (ironically) never see light because I am too tired, petrified, angry, and exhausted to get up and jot them down. Even the thought of recording the random blurb on my phone feels like work. I just...can't.

Maybe this is why Mr. King sleeps with I the light on. I dont know. It is now night here. As each day passes, I find it harder every time the sun sets. My brain, laughing, tell me...its time...

Once again. I prepare to go into the breach.

**Micaa grabs her rifle. Holds it above her head and runs, screaming, into the night. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!** In th distance the reader hears-faintly:.
Ratta tatta tatta tatta.....echoes. The sound of rapid gunfire.

Face your fears. Do not let them have power over you.

What do YOU think?