Day 10 - Something you're afraid of

I like to think of myself as a pretty confident person. And I don't mean pretty (like beautiful) and confident as two adjectives to describe myself, because that would be conceited. I just mean self-assured.

However, I really have a lot of little fears in life. In fact, I'm a huge wuss when I have to be home by myself at night. When Sean was travelling for work and was gone Monday through Thursday night and I had to stay in our house by myself I pretty much had a panic attack every night before I tried to go to sleep.

I have really irrational fears about being home alone at night. I tried several different things to try and fix this problem, but none of them really worked.

1. Getting kittens: This failed on all levels. When you have two kittens that are 6 and 8 weeks old, they do not sleep at night. They pounce on your face. They tumble around on top of each other. They meow. They bite. They had to go. Solution? I put them outside of my room and slept with the door closed. Which was awful because then I wouldn't be able to hear people breaking in. I'm telling you - irrational.

2. Sleeping on the couch: I figured this was an acceptable solution because then I wasn't backed into a room with only one way out if someone intruded into my house. Then I could run in multiple directions. However, our couches are great for sitting on, great for napping on, and horrible for spending the entire night sleeping on. So that was out.

3. Getting really drunk: This actually did help quell my fear of there being someone in my house, and I could fall asleep relatively quickly, but on every other level its not OK. You wake up hungover, you eat crappy breakfast because you need to feel better, you don't work out... Yes, not conducive to my life.

4. Staying at my parents: I feel pathetic even typing that. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I've done that. In an effort to not be home alone (am I 5??) I definitely have gone over to my parents under the pretense of "having dinner" and then "its gotten too late, I'll just stay with my conveniently packed over night bag that just happens to be in my car and has all the essentials for working out and going to work the next day..."

I guess I may have watched one too many scary movies growing up. That's really the only explanation I can think of. Because if Sean leaves a light on in the back of the house and then is gone (say, at softball) when I get home and its dark outside, then I minorly freak out about why the light is on. And it pretty much goes something like this:

walks through front door into dark, empty house

sees a light around the corner in the part of the house no one ever goes in

walks quickly to the kitchen, keys still in hand, ready to stab someone if need be

pours a glass of wine

stands in kitchen

pours another glass of wine

grabs a cat so that if someone is in the back of the house i can throw the cat onto them and run

walks with keys cat and wine to back of house very slowly, looking into each room and doing a mental assessment, then closing the door

goes back to the kitchen, still not convinced

pours to-go wine and drives aimlessly around cypress until Sean is coming home

So I guess you could say my biggest fear is someone breaking into my house and killing me.

There you have it.

xoxo

Rachael