The Monster
I've known this monster all my life. I looked for it under my bed in the dark. It wasn't there. It hid in my closet at my birth, waiting for me.
Hiding in my big, cannonball bed with my dollies and stuffed animals to protect me, I knew how to fool it. If I stayed still and held my breath long enough, it would think I was dead and leave to terrify another child. It never left.
It grew as I grew. It grew faster, bigger, meaner, and scarier. Ready to take me at any moment. I ran from it. At times, it caught me. It caught me like tacklers caught Jerry Rice -- by the tail of my shirt or by my ankle.
I'm not Jerry Rice. It caught me, forced me to go where I did not want to go and do things against my will. Things that took parts of me away like a torn jersey on a wide receiver. Things never returned.
I kept running. It followed me from place to place - from South Jersey to Illinois, from Illinois to Virginia, from Virginia to Illinois, from Illinois to North Jersey, and then, followed me back to where I started -- South Jersey. Loved ones, places, and prized possessions were lost, but it remained.
It got bigger, meaner, scarier. Like The Blob, it sucked up everything in its path and absorbed it to grow. It drained the spirit that jumped off garage roofs. It dried the freedom within a mother's love. It shriveled the confidence to "be whatever you want to be." It depleted worth and my future. I saw its shadow as I ran.
Twenty-one years of running from that monster. It stole one last thing. Cold and numb, I took a long hot shower. Then I gave up. I curled up in my college bunk bed in the dark corner. Eyes closed. It could have me. It took me.
It was dark like the black in a cave. It was dank and warm, terrifying and comforting. It was fear. It was hate. It was doom. It was hopelessness. It was eternal death. It was defeat. It smothered me.
A distant memory? A world that was never meant to be? A friend visiting at the right moment? I don’t know what caused it, but a tiny flicker of faded light invaded the darkness, and I reached out. It wrenched my arm back down and squeezed me like a python. It was too late.
Strangers I did not know helped me. They helped me, when I didn’t want the help. They forced their help onto me, and they ripped at the monster. Moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, they fought it. I fought with them. I don’t remember when I decided to fight back. It was not too late.
Strangers became friends I will never forget. We fought it together, when I wanted the help. Day by day, week by week, month by month, we fought. Bit by bit, it lost its power until it released its grip on me. We ripped it to shreds. I opened my eyes and saw the monster for the first time.
It was little. It was weak. It was a small thing that cast a huge shadow. It was the little girl staring at the closet door in the dark. It was the child falling off her bike when Mommy let go. It was the young girl, who hurt her wrist, jumping off garages. It was the eighth grader stripped of the home with the monster-hiding closet. It was the teenager watching her parents' custody battle end with the death of her mother. It was the stripped hitchhiker restrained by five half-naked men in the dark house. It was the co-ed mingling tears with the scalding water in the shower before giving up.
I laughed. It was me.
The shadow of the monster named Fear was huge. Fear itself is too small to take me again.
