Fear

You know, fear is a funny thing. Sometimes it's there, gripping your throat and squeezing your stomach, and sometimes it's gone. It can wreak havoc on your emotions and just generally sucks or it can make you stronger... push you to do things you never thought possible.

Everyone is afraid of something. For some people it's clowns or snakes or ants or walking into a building completely naked or in my brother's case... beavers (when he was little).

For me, it's fire.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't afraid of fire. When I was a kid, it terrified me. Field trips to the fire department in pre-school guaranteed at least a week of nightmares. The same for fire department field trips in kindergarten and summer camp. In sixth grade we watched the movie Across Five Aprils and in it, the main family's house burns down. Bad news bears for my sleeping habits.

And when I say nightmares, I don't just mean a bad dream that you can wake up from, get over, and go back to sleep after. My nightmares were intense and very real. Then, when I finally woke up, I would be convinced that it was real and that my house really was on fire. I would be super hot, my ears would be ringing (it always sounded like the fire alarm to me), and I would be convinced that I smelled wood smoke. It was terrifying.

I've since moved on to more adult fears, like being alone forever, getting fat, and not being able to pay back my extremely large college loans, but every now and then, little things will spark that fear. I hate electric blankets because someone I know once set their house on fire with a faulty one. I love having fires in our fireplace, but it scares me when we leave it smoldering at the end of the night, just in case it explodes or something. And of course, attempting to watch Ladder 49, was a really bad idea... I only made it through the first 15 minutes before I had to leave the room because I thought I was going to be sick. Then I had to sleep with the light on that night because I was scared and I kept thinking I smelled wood smoke.

Fortunately, I no longer sleep with the light on and I very, very rarely wake up in a cold sweat caused by a dream in which my house has erupted in flames. I'll just need to remember to never watch Ladder 49 again.