Scaredy-Cat

I used to tell myself that I was brave. When I was at friends' sleepovers, I would always be the one to check things out if we heard a noise or something outside. Well, it was all an act. Who was I kidding? I am a scaredy cat. I have never much liked to stay alone at night. Even when I was younger, when my parents would be gone somewhere at night, I would always freak myself out. I can remember locking myself in my room with a knife from the kitchen (like I would be that scary with a small knife that I probably wouldn't even know how to use). I would stay there for hours until my parents got home, not even leaving to go to the bathroom. No, I didn't go on myself, I just held it for a long time. I would like to say that now that I am an adult, my nighttime fears have gone. But I think they're worse than ever. When we lived in town, it wasn't so bad. I felt pretty safe with neighbors all around me. But, something about living more in the country scares me a little at night.

In my defense, weird things have happened in the past. At our old house one night, actually the night we found out we were pregnant with Cale, we had a late night visitor. At about 1:00 am, we were awoken by the frantic ringing of our doorbell. Imagine your doorbell being pressed over and over and over. I remember being so groggy I didn't really understand what was going on. Then, we heard the banging on the door and the screaming. A girl's voice was screaming and yelling, "Help, he's going to kill me. Please help!" I remember my heart just about stopped beating at that moment and my legs went numb. I grabbed my phone and started calling 911 as Carl opened the door. It was a hispanic woman and her baby standing there. Carl pulled them inside and back into our room. The woman's face was a gruesome sight to see. She was very bloody, swollen, black and blue, and her nose was broken. She was crying and her baby was screaming. It was like a bad dream. Her boyfriend, who was on meth, had beaten her up pretty badly and was in the process of filling the bathtub to drown her when she got away and came to our house. Now, we didn't have a weapon of any kind in our house, so we were a little nervous that this crazy meth addict was going to come looking for her. But, luckily the police and ambulance arrived after about 10 minutes. But, the boyfriend was long gone.

I remember I didn't sleep a wink that night in fear that the boyfriend would come to our house. I also kept hearing the eerie sound of the doorbell ringing in my head. Ever since then, I'm always afraid something crazy like that will happen while I'm home alone.

So, on our new house we got an alarm installed. This does make me feel safer...a little. Last week as we were sleeping one night, suddenly the alarm went off. I felt that same feeling I had felt the night the woman was beating on our door. My heart started beating like crazy and my legs went numb as we jumped out of bed and ran to check on the boys. As Carl checked the house he found that our back door was open a little, which is what caused the alarm to go off. Of course this freaked me out because I just knew someone had been trying to get in the house. I realized that I had forgotten to lock the door but then I also remembered that Cale was the last one that came through that door and he had shut it behind himself. So, Carl convinced me (or tried to convince me) that Cale just had not shut the door very well. I really wasn't convinced because I can remember watching Cale shut it and being nervous because he almost shut his fingers in. Also, that door is very heavy and I can't imagine the wind blowing it open. So, needless to say I didn't sleep much that night either.

So, all that background information was to say that last Sunday night I had to stay home alone again. We had been gone to Branson all weekend with my parents and then drove from there straight to Havana to see Carl's mom. Carl ended up staying with his mom (due to a family crisis) and so I drove the boys home by myself. It's about an hour drive from Carl's mom's house to our house. An hour is a lonnnng time to sit and dream stuff up in my head. And that is just what I did. I sat and wondered if maybe someone would be in the house when we got home. When I pulled in, of course our garage door lights were on for some reason. So, a little bit scared just turned into, a lot scared. I walked in, turned almost all the lights on, and set the alarm. Of course Cale had fallen asleep on the way home and when I tried to ever so carefully get him out of his car seat, he had woken up. He was in the worst mood and threw one of the biggest fits of all time. He kept throwing himself on the floor screaming and slobbering. Then, Keaton decided to start crying due to hunger. So, it was just mass chaos. I'm usually okay at night by myself until bedtime. For some reason, bedtime is when I get scared. I think it's because the house is so quiet. So quiet, you can hear all those strange sounds that probably exist during the day but just aren't noticeable. I finally got Cale to calm down and I bathed he and Keaton. Then, I put him to bed. After about 15 mintues, he came back in crying. I decided to try and get him to sleep with me. Yes, kinda for selfish reasons. Keaton was already sleeping in the carseat in my room so Cale climbed into bed and we started watching cartoons. I had hopes he might fall asleep while watching, but that didn't happen. Finally I turned the toons off and tried to get Cale to go to sleep. Well, that didn't happen either. He flipped and flopped and kept sitting up and talking. Finally, I had to take him back to his own room. After crying for a few minutes he finally went back to sleep.

And after laying in bed for awhile, I finally went to sleep too, with the bathroom light on and a baseball bat by my side. I wanted to get the mase, but it was out in my car and I wasn't about to go out and get it.

I wish I was brave. I wish I wasn't scared of anything. I wish my only sign of having any kind of imagination wasn't linked to the crazy thoughts I think up when I'm alone at night. But, I'm not brave. I am scared. And I do let my mind think some crazy things. Thank goodness there are very few times in the year that Carl is not home at night.