Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Lights Out? No, Not for Me.

It is a good thing I didn’t become an astronaut. Imagine this exchange:

“Houston, is there a problem?”
“Yes, a weird one. I am trying to save our electrical capacity and Astronaut Joy has lost it in the dark of the space. Should we return to earth or should I fill her up with a tricyclic?”
“Shoot her. We can’t abort the mission.”

Eeek!

No wonder Iron Maiden sang:

When the light begins to change
I sometimes feel a little strange
A little anxious when it's dark.

And, if you are curious why a woman my age should quote Iron Maiden, the blame lies with my younger son, who used our garage to fill the neighborhood skies with his band’s heavy-metal din. To get in his good graces, I once lied that I liked the beat of Judas Priest. It must have worked because I overheard him brag (actually I eavesdropped) to his buddies, as if he has won the Olympics, “My Mom, really likes Judas Priest.” Luckily, nowadays, he plays romantic Latin music on his acoustic guitar. That’s what age and his wife did to him. But I digress…

Getting back to my fear of the dark, I don’t only jump at things that go bump or creak or screech at dark. Due to my out-of-control imagination, I panic and turn into a spooked beast that flails around in mindless, savage fear.

My fear doesn’t have a name. Okay, so they call it a phobia, but what I am trying to say is that, at such a moment, I am not even thinking of ghosts and other otherworldly creatures or even nasties from the planet earth like serial killers, rapists, burglars and the like. My fear has no definable element. It is just fear. It is not being able to see. Strange thing is, when I close my eyes, I don’t see either, but I am not afraid of my inside’s darkness…maybe because I know it so well.

The weird thing is, I can stay in the dark if someone I know is in the room with me. Otherwise, how else would I be able to sleep with a husband who turns our bedroom into a dark tomb with no light? No, mine is not a fear of aloneness either. When he used to go away on business, I was fine being alone and even enjoyed my solitude. Of course, our electric bill in such a situation rose considerably.

Don’t tell me about night lights. I hate them. They throw shadows around and give every movement, every doorway, every piece of furniture monstrous capabilities multiplied billion-fold by my imagination. Maybe this is the primordial fear etched in my DNA from the times my kind lived in the jungle and had to be wary of lions and such, as in the right dose fear is a good and useful thing; the impulse to flee danger gives people an evolutionary advantage.

Whatever the reason, if I can't see what's happening in the dark and can't be completely certain of what is going on around me, flipping the switch to on--even if the electric bill rises sky high--is the best remedy . I lose my fear-of-the-dark problems then. Except, as the result of the remedy, this fear of the dark will possibly turn into a financial problem.

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Prompt: What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?