Facing the Demons

When I was seven, a little girl found the skeleton of a homo-sapience lying on a beach somewhere along the Northern African coast. An archeology enthusiast back then, I was totally thrilled by the news and sat closely by the telly in order to see the presenter unveil this remarkable historical discovery. Little did I know at the time that putrefied skeletons are not much of a pretty sight and I spent the evening being terrorized by flashing images of the once cave man. At night, I reluctantly waved my parents good-bye, made my way upstairs and walked into the darkened bedroom. Lying in bed I kept on being haunted by those images I had seen earlier on the screen. I shivered, I was scared then, I vividly remember, I sat up in the middle of the bed, turned my wee side table lamp on and gave myself a little declaration about why I shouldn't have been afraid of a dead man. For a dead man cannot do me any harm; same reasoning went for beetles, who are too small compared to me, ghosts, insects, animals, monsters and all sort of creepy creatures. The same reasoning goes for most things still now. Guess in many ways Faith has helped me exorcise a lot of fears and made me a much braver person. Time changes us, man, doesn't it change us. I have now returned to an old reality, to the things I loved and I had forgotten I did, to the places I always liked, the mentality I could never embrace, the people I disagreed so much with, but never felt adequate enough to confront. Now a much older, hopefully wiser, woman I face the world with very little fear. It doesn't mean that I have the answers to everything, nor that I am fearless or invincible. It is just that with the light on, even in the middle of the night, it becames much easier to face monsters, demons, life.