So, you know how every once in a while you have one of those moments where you are just plain old terrified? You know the feeling. Its that one when you look at something or hear something and just don't quite understand what is happening and then when you finally do realize what it is you are experiencing the little goblin who lives in the even littler unused organ next to your stomach comes outside and presses the panic button and the bottom of your stomach opens up and all of your innards up to your neck fall out of your body.
At least that's what you feel like is happening.
Then you start to breathe again and you realize that as horrible as whatever the thing is that just happened may have been/be/will continue to be, you aren't dead yet so you have to do something. And you see, I hate those moments. I hate them so much.
I recently had a bad dream. I generally don't remember my dreams, but the scary ones seem to stick. Nightmares have that effect on a person. They can stick for DAYS. So I have recently been in one of these stuck-for-days-thanks-to-a-creepy-dream dazes and ive been recalling fear moments. Here are a few I thought of. They arent actually that bad at all....in fact now I laugh about them. But at the time, I all but soiled my pants.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in high school. I hadn't known him very long when he was diagnosed, but I considered him a friend and and naturally worried about him and became almost protective of him. Over the next few years he had radiation and a few surgeries, one of which left a crescent shaped scar on his neck right around the adams apple. It's kind of like his neck is smirking at you because it knows something you don't. Rather rude in my opinion.
So anyway, we went to a scout camp one summer and we were tent mates. He had recently had a radiation treatment, but he ensured me it was all gone now and I would be fine sleeping in the tent with him. The first night was fun, but I don't sleep well in new places and ended up waking up halfway through the night. I started to come to and open my eyes and saw right across from me, RIGHT where his his head had been when we were talking, a faint green glow. It was a thin vertical line of green not too far away. I thought about it for a bit and realized that it was juuuuust about as long as his scar might have been....and it was vertical as if he was laying down. Then it hit me. I lost my innards. I realized at that moment that he was indeed still radioactive, that I was going to grow extra eyes and fingers, and never be able to have children. (not that having extra eyes and fingers would help my chances with the ladies anyway...not to mention any other undesirable side effects) It was terrible. I wanted to cry. But as my eyes began to adjust, I realized that it was just the moonlight hitting the tent. Which was green. And had a vertical rip in it. Innards restored.
Now this story happened just a few weeks ago. I was spending some time with a friend whose wife had to be out of town that night, and he gets HOPELESSLY mopey when she is gone, so I went to go cheer him up. We were just lounging around watching tv and he was surfing Facebook. He ended up going back to some old messages from when he and his wife were just dating and he was talking about how cute they were (*gag* mushy couples get to me sometimes). But he went quiet for a bit and then suddenly said, "Wow. Im such a whore. So, I hooked up with this girl over Christmas..." and I stopped listening. Because I had just lost my innards. The stomach dropped out and I struggled to breathe. Here was my best friend oh-so-calmly mentioning how he had cheated on his wife over Christmas and was laughing about it. I was already forming thoughts in my head."Ok look....I'm your friend and I won't say anything to her, but I will do ANYTHING in my power to get you to confess to her!" and other such thoughts were running through the only organ left functioning in my body. And before I knew it he was laughing at me. I came our of my semi-torpor just in time to hear him say "Nate, that was five years ago." before they were married. He then spent the next ten minutes laughing at me while I lectured him about how he has to give more back story and can't just come out and say things like "so I hooked up with this girl over Christmas" and such. Not cool.
So, here is to all those poor souls with a weak overwhelming fear trigger. You are not alone. It sucks. But you wont die from it.
Usually.
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