I'm not going in there!

No way am I going in there!
Image courtesy of Robert Linder, rgbstock.com

When I was a kid, I used to love grabbing some books and seeking out cozy, quiet places to read. My bed was—and still is—a favorite place. The tree house out in the backyard was another favorite, and I also liked sitting in my dad's green recliner because I could swivel it around as I read.

One day I wanted a new place to read, so I looked around my bedroom and decided that I would read under my bed instead of in it. I crawled under and opened my book. After a while, I realized I was hungry, so I closed the book and attempted to slide out from under the bed. I say attempted because I couldn't move. My hair, which at that time was down to the middle of my back, had gotten stuck in the bed's exposed springs. I was trapped!

I remember screaming for my dad, and it seemed like an eternity before he got to the room. He found me in a state of absolute panic. The space that had felt so cozy and secure was suddenly tight and menacing. I was crying hysterically, my breath coming in panicked gasps. The floor was too close to me; the carpet would surely smother me. I knew that I would die. Finally, though, my dad managed to untangle my hair from the springs and pull me from beneath the bed. I could breathe! I never went under that bed again—not even to rescue books or toys. I sent my younger sister in for those.

Ever since that moment, I've been afraid of small, confined spaces. I even have a hard time reading about people who are in those situations, and seeing them is even worse. It's as if I'm the one in the enclosed space. I panic; I can't breathe.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a TV show in which a man was lying on his back and using his feet to push himself into a tiny cave. The ceiling was so close to him—mere inches away—and he couldn't turn over. I panicked. My breathing grew shallow; I felt like I was running out of oxygen. I was in that cave with him, and all I wanted was to get out. My heart is racing even as I type this...

It's only the wide-open spaces for me.


What about you? Do you have any phobias you just can't shake?

That day

Today's 100 words:

He came home from school that day to find the house strung with laundry, every surface covered--the backs of chairs, the dresser tops, the counters. Even the pictures on the walls had been removed so that the nails that had been keeping them in place--keeping them from succumbing to gravity--could accommodate hangers topped with dresses, shirts, pants, curtains...everything that could be held by those bent and twisted wires. He watched, openmouthed, as his grandma stood at the ironing board, her right hand moving back and forth across an old housedress, an overflowing basket waiting beside her.

No more slow-motion world

Today's 100 words:

It's nearly the middle of September, and I don't understand how the days and weeks speed by like this, so fast--zip, zoom--and then they're gone, and suddenly it's another month with its own zipping and zooming, days and weeks that come too fast and go too fast--out of control, really, and not at all like what they were when I was a child and the months used to crawl by, a day seeming like a week, a month like a year as I waited in eager anticipation for something--anything--to happen in my slow-motion world.