Monsters

As children we all know what its like to be afraid of the monsters we believe are lurking in the shadows. We imagine them to be in our closets, under our beds, or behind our doors waiting for their moment to jump out and do their worst. We picture them in our minds; big, ugly, menacing. Its amazing to me how often we fear the things that don't exist. As a child myself though I was never afraid of those boogeymen. I knew they didn't exist, and besides I was afraid of the realities. I knew that people were far more menacing than any imaginary monster ever could be. Instead I feared the night time because I was fully aware of the people who would be waiting for me in the darkness. When you grow up in a scary world filled with evil people you learn very quickly to not trust. You learn that everyone no matter how nice they might look has an evil dark side just waiting to be revealed at the most unexpected of moments. You learn to never truly sleep. You learn that sleeping with one eye open is actually possible and if you are ever dumb enough to put down your guard you will live to regret it, if you're lucky that is. So this was how I grew up. I grew up knowing that I had a mother whose concern was not for my safety and well being but for her own. She threw me to the wolves many times and each time she did I felt the betrayal of it all just that much worse. Eventually though, I became numb to it all. I would simply detach myself and go somewhere else. I am fascinated by how resilient the human spirit can be. Even as a child I realized that if whatever was happening was to horrific for me to handle all I had to do was let go and take myself away from it all. I could go to this beautiful place that existed only in my thoughts. A place where people were kind and loving, a place where night didn't exist and everyone basked in the glory of the sun. If I shut my eyes tight enough and was able to really escape I could even feel the warmth of that sun. Somehow that got me through some of the most horrific nights and some of the worst pains. Now I'm an adult but the reality is that very often I am still that scared little girl in the night. It affects my ability to sleep and so for 25 years I have struggled with insomnia, a condition I forced upon myself for so long that now I am at the point where my body knows no other way to live. Eventually I hope to find an inner peace that will undo all of that damage but until then I wait. Now that I myself am a parent I watch my children be afraid of monsters in the closet. It is such a relief to occasionally have to check for those monsters to relieve their innocent fears because it tells me that their childhoods will be completely different from my own. They will never experience those horrors or know what its like to have to face real monsters every night. Just knowing that is finally making it a little bit easier for me to sleep at night.