I do not like any kind of suspense at all. I certainly do not like to be scared. My family and friends know not to ever "BOO!" me because I can't be responsible for what might happen to them if they do. I go in Fat Girl Ninja mode. It ain't pretty but it's effective and that's what matters.
When I was little, my father (Buddy) was a long-haul trucker so he was gone for periods of time. One night, my mom and I were sitting in our family room watching TV when I heard a scratching at the side window. We had a woodpile right outside and we also heard some logs falling. My mom called the police to come out. After doing a search, it was concluded that it was "just a cat". However, while the police were at our house, a burglary call came in at the house right behind ours. Not a coincidence......
When I was a little bit older, I shared a bedroom with my older sister, who is 11 years older than me. With that age difference, we didn't have a whole lot in common. I was the bratty baby sister and she was a high schooler. One night, I heard a scratching noise at the bedroom window. When I looked over, I saw a stick being raised, lowered and scratching the window screen. Either my mom or my sister tried to scream but nothing came out. I think it was my mom that ran to the front door wielding a gun at the would-be-intruder. To this DAY I am petrified of windows. All of my doors and windows must be covered by blinds and at night they have to be closed. Josh would love to sleep with the window open but that's just not going to ever happen. As a matter of fact, when I first moved back to Dothan from New Orleans, I had all of the windows in my house nailed shut.
You know the feeling you get when you think someone is following you and about to grab you? Its a mixture of adrenaline and fear. I would get that walking down my hallway at night, or walking from my front door to the car, or swimming in our pool. I kept the heeby-jeebies all the time, even now.
I'm also afraid of the dark. Definitely not as much as I used to be. I used to have to have a light on in the bedroom to go to sleep. Now, I just leave the bathroom light on. *lol* Only when Josh is home do I get a dark room to sleep in. Luckily, he can sleep through anything so the light doesn't bother him, just my scaredy-cat ways. Driving down a dark road.....CREEPY! I'm always afraid someone is going to pop out of the bushes. As a middle schooler, a group of us would ride down to the Devil Church on Fortner Street, turn the lights out on the car and drive down there into the dark. If I could see the old me now, I'd love to smack the snot out of me for the stupid things I did.
Growing up, I was convinced I would be dead before I hit 40. I just knew that I would die a horrific, brutal murder. Because of my fear of the dark....and other fears.....Josh decided it would be a good idea to get me a pistol for when he's not here, or if I find myself in a situation out in public. I needed to learn how to shoot it, right?
Josh took me and a box of bullets out to my brother's place in Kinsey. They had a little home made shooting range out there. So I loaded my gun, aimed for the target and prepared to shoot. I made a couple of really good shots! As I was changing my grip, I apparently put my hands in a position Josh told me not to. When I squeezed the trigger, I felt a little cut and then my thumb started pouring blood. We got the bleeding to stop, bandaged it up and kept shooting. Before we left, I was checking out my thumb and noticed it wouldn't bend. At all. I could sit there and will it all I wanted to and it wasn't going to move. We stopped at a friend's house on the way home and let him take a look at it since he's a P.A. He thought it might just be sprained and thought it would probably be ok. It wasn't. By Monday, it was still the same so I called my family doctor for an appointment. I will just say now, my doctor was Tony Gabrielson. If you know him, you can imagine how THAT visit went. He crawled my butt for letting it go so long. "Dude, that's an important digit! You don't need to lose that!" My grip was wrong on the gun so the slide came back when it was fired and it sliced the tendon in my thumb.
A week or two later (!) I was taken to Columbus, GA by an angel named Kelly Johnson. I had surgery on my thumb at the Hughston Clinic. The tendon was reattached and a very long pin was placed in the top of my thumb going straight down through it to hold everything together. I went through hand therapy and today, it's relatively good as new.
All these years, I have had so many fears. It should have occurred to me a long time ago that I'm my own worst enemy. I need to watch out for myself, apparently!
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