Last night I was alone in the house for the first time in months, and to be honest, I was pretty creeped out. This is an old house, and full of memories and probably a few ghosts, if you believe in that kind of thing. No poltergiest activity, but I have the constant feeling that I am being watched from the hallway outside my room, and also the stairway, through the banister railing. This doesn’t occur during the day, only at night. I hear whispered voices that may or may not be frogs on the pond. I leave on an outside flood light, which works wonders in the hazy mist rolling out of the nearby wetlands. I make it a point to check the empty rooms downstairs and lock all the doors. There are people living in the shadows. I am not alone. The house is dead silent. I wake up in sweats and my cat is annoyed and confused that I have woken her up with my anxiety. She sees more than me. She sleeps soundly, without anxiety, because she’s a cat. I know there is nothing and no one in the house. This is absurd, I’m 40 years old, for Christs sake, and afraid of the dark. What a fool I can be, and how superstitious.
That doesn’t mean you’re going to catch me in the basement…
When I was 11 I saw the movie ‘Jaws’. I didn’t swim in the ocean for years. I even avoided swimming pools, unless I could see the bottom.
I should have never seen ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘The Exorcist’, or ‘The Others’. Yah! I just got chills thinking about them.
I had a great talk with my sister about an hour ago. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, and sometimes our communication can get pretty monosyllabic. Today was a really good day. We talked about a lot of important stuff in a very forward thinking fashion. These are all small, healthy, new stones in a new foundation of family. I don’t always know what to do with these building blocks. I have to have a little faith that they are beneficial and use them, sometimes blindly. They’ll fit where they fit, and that will be that. Anyway, good speaking with you, if you read this. Restoration of any structure can be a long, tedious, and difficult project, but always worthwhile in the end. Restoration is probably more difficult than tearing down and building anew. Any architects want to chime in on this one?
Johnnyboy