Things that go bump in the night
Sitting here now, in my thirty-sixth year, I struggle to recall my childhood impressions of The Bogey Man. He was about the same size as Santa, with dark hair and menacing eyes. Despite his considerable bulk, he was magically able to smoosh himself to a width that allowed him entrance through one of the slats of my closet door, giving him the solitude he needed through the day to plot his next attempt on my life.

Other than the occasional threatening gesture, it seemed my Bogey Man's forte was mind games. He spurred my own overactive imagination on, then let inertia take over. In toddler terms, I was a cheap date. There was many a night I would awake from yet another terrifying dream, drenched in sweat, clawing at my walls in a futile attempt to free myself from my internal demons. Night terrors are a fairly common occurrence among the young, as I have gleaned from the many books I've read on the subject. The fact it still happens, although rarely, is definitely cause for concern, as this may be an indicator of REM Sleep Disorder. (One night, The Boy was roused from sleep to find me silently choking his ankle. He still reminds me of that, and the look on his face is most definitely not one of great hilarity).

The two times I've been involved in a Clinical Sleep Study, I've slept like the dead. They even put a note on my file for the techs to keep a special eye out for me to do a soft-shoe routine or make a beeline for the window, wires and all, to do a header onto the sidewalk below. Nothing. Personally, I think the nice woman who disentangled me the second morning was a little disappointed. Maybe they had an office pool going for the most retarded thing I would do.

Lately, my grown-up version of TBM visits me around 2:15 a.m., just hanging out, probably waiting for me to put the coffee on, for an hour or so. Even with The Boy, my protector, lying inches from me, I experience feelings of being incapable, sad, alone, not worthy and friendless. The most bizarre movies play in my head, with me always powerless to pull the plug. I am the first to admit that I'm my own worst enemy. Sadly, even though I step up to admit one of my largest shortcomings, the movies continue to play these freakish all night showings, like a 'B' version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I don't even get popcorn or Junior Mints.

The thing that gets me the most is the fact that when I was small, TBM was simply a threat; I suppose, playing on my smallness and fostering very early on my need to worry about something; anything. That was peanuts compared to all the crap that parades through my head lately in the wee hours of the morning. There in the dark, I get to live and re-live all the true-to-life things that hold me back, things that stare me full on in the face, things about my personality that are ugly, things that cause the more sensitive around me to shy away in the harsh light of day.

The thing is, a good look at The Big Picture tells us it takes the good, the bad and the ugly to make up a human being. Why my obviously warped psyche persists in reminding me only of the warts and scales that I am for the most part successful in hiding from polite society,
I fear I'll never know.

However, until that time, I'll just take some
Goobers and a large Diet Coke.

Posted at 3:22 p.m.