Afraid

Tonight I am on my own. H is working. I am comfortable and content. I feel safe.

I can remember a time, when I was younger when I was afraid of being on my own. In my house on my own.

I was so scared of being alone that it took me a long time to leave a person I should not have been with.

When I asked him to leave and he left I sat on the floor crying and shaking. Not because he had left but because of the space that was left, the fear, the empty house.

I was convinced that I could not be safe there alone. I would stay awake each night as long as I could. MTV was my back drop and I fell asleep on the sofa each night for two weeks with the TV on.

Then I moved upstairs to bed but every night I followed the same routine. I had a bread knife at the side of the bed and hairspray  (it was the 80s!). I had a plan, I thought if I had a plan it would be ok. So it was that if anyone came into the house to harm me I would spray them in the face with the hairspray, brandish the old bread knife and run out of the house, screaming 'fire'.  I had been told by a friend that 'fire' was much better than anything else and would definitely mean that a neighbour would rescue me.

I have no idea where the fear came from other than a fear of the world, the big wide world and how it could hurt me at 23.

Looking back now I was so young and so scared. But also brave. Brave enough to face that absolute fear with a plan.

I wonder sometimes, now as I get older whether I am still that brave or do I need to be because I am older and wiser. I don't know, I don't know much really. Other than tonight I am not afraid. I am tired, warm and full of words.

There is no bread knife or hairspray at the side of my bed. Just magazines, moisturiser and a posh clock radio.

Time moves on.