Blog 68 -Something that scares me

It is probably the most irrational thing ever, but I have to admit that I am still somewhat scared of the dark. I don’t mean that I have problems sleeping in the night if the lights are not on or something. That fear I have surely outgrown over time. The dark I speak of is more like a pitch black dark, the kind of dark where you can’t see your hand in front of your face,  and all you can hear are the chirps of crickets outside. That’s the kind of dark that scares me.

Where I’m from, power isn’t always on. It tends to knock off sometimes, and when it does, especially at night. I feel that fear. Whenever the light goes off, I have to go outside to put on the generator. Along the path to where the generator is, there are a lot of flowers and weeds. Now, when I was younger, my mother, like any good mother, warned me seriously about snakes, scorpions, and other deadly creatures that hide in the shrubs. Whenever I go outside to put the generator on, my subconscious begins to fuel my fear of these things. It’s like my senses become heightened: every little sound I hear seems to be a “hiss” or a cricket chirp. Every shrub brushing up against my leg feels like a snake’s tongue, and every little prick from the bushes feels like the prick of a scorpion.

However, I have a found a way to defeat my fears: singing. Whenever I go out there, I start singing, sometimes as loudly as I can. With me singing (or in this case, shouting), I don’t feel any of the things I normally do. I’m sure sometimes my neighbors may think I’m mad, but that’s what works for me: and by God, I’m sticking to it.