In today’s Daily Post prompt, there was a list of five posts to write when you’re stuck on what to post on your blog. The last one caught my eye: “Your Childhood Fear”.
I really can’t say that it’s something I’ve gotten over, either, so maybe it’s a lifelong fear? When I was growing up, my parents fought a lot, especially when my father was drinking. My mom always tried to get us out of the house when he was drinking too much. One afternoon when my father had been drinking, my mother got my oldest brother, Carlos, to gather us up and take us outside and wait for her. When she got out with the baby, we walked downtown to the movie theater. It was quite a trek, about a mile and a half from our house and there were seven of us kids so it took awhile to walk all the way. My mother didn’t drive so we walked or we took the bus when we had to go some place. That day we walked because paying the bus fare meant we wouldn’t have enough money for the movies. In those days, the very early 1960’s, they showed two movies, movie trailers, cartoons, and a news reel. They didn’t come to kick you out at the end of the movie, either. So that afternoon we stayed through the whole show then stayed again. My mother wanted to keep us out of the house as long as possible in the hopes that my father would either be sober by the time we got back home or he would be passed out.
When the last show was over, we had to leave the theater. It was late so it was very dark outside. We walked home but it was so dark out that we walked in the middle of the street so we wouldn’t trip on the sidewalk or step in a hole. I remember that there was steam coming up from the manholes in the street so it looked like fog coming from the ground, or at least that’s how I picture it when I recall that night. The movies we had watched were monster movies. I don’t remember which ones but they both had monsters and had been scary to me as I was about four years old. As we walked in the middle of the street, we would watch for cars and when one approached, we left the street and headed for the sidewalk. That’s when I saw the opening in the side of the curb. It had a grate over it and now I know that it was a storm drain but at four years of age, I thought it was where the monsters lived. I was scared that if I stepped over it or even near it, the monsters would grab my leg and pull me in. I was so traumatized that one of my brothers had to pick me up and carry me over the storm drain every time we came to one.
Ever since then, I cannot go near storm drains, let alone walk over one! If I do, I know a monster will pop up and drag me away! I just know it!
It is weird that we hold on to those fears of children even when we know the fear was irrational. I can imagine walking down that street with the fog erupting from the ground and I’d be scared to death too!
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Odd how children’s minds work. I imagined snakes under my bed at night. I’d pull the sheet up until nothing but my eyes were uncovered. Just that thin sheet made me feel safer. And I suppose it hung on to some extint because I still want a sheet all the way up to my neck when I go to sleep, even if it is warm and I don’t need it.
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I, too, have an inordinate fear of storm drains. To this day, I never step over, but go around them. Visions of falling into an unknown, underground place are too much to contemplate. I just know I’ll be the one to finally crack that cement, which appears to have no support. So yep, I’m with you.
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I picked #5 too. It is amazing how we perceive things as we grow up. I hadn’t really given my fear until I saw the prompt. Great read, thank you 🙂
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[…] this post from February 25, I wrote about being afraid of storm drains and the reason why. The post I am […]
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