An Essay

One of my brothers has a fear that a strange assassin will sneak into his bedroom at night, slaying him with arrows to the chest. Because of this he sleeps cuddling a pillow. He feels less vulnerable with a pillow. A pillow.

Being vulnerable feels like you’re against a wall, all alone, while the people who have any degree of negativity towards you are on the opposite side, ready with loaded weapons. Do you trust that they will have mercy? Do you rely on your own past behavior to save you? Or do you stand there, fear and all, and leave your fate in their hands?

I don’t hide much. I wear my emotions on my face. The mere idea of suppressing emotion gets me panicky, and I feel the very first tinges of an anxiety attack. It’s only when I’m hidden and smothered that I get these attacks. So I don’t hide, and please, for god’s sake, don’t smother me. ;)

So, you see, I face the world head on. Until I’m up against that wall. It’s only then that I feel the need to hide, a primal need to protect myself. In those situations, I don’t trust well, and I don’t rely on my dubious past. My ideal would be the ability to let things flow, and let things come as they may. “I’m a leaf in the stream”. Stand there, vulnerable, fate belonging to someone else, and be completely at peace with that.

Instead, I find myself running from the “threat”. I yearn for the familiar, the predictable. It’s like wandering through a dark, menacing forest, and desperately looking for those bread crumbs you dropped. Something that you recognize. Something that means you will make it through safe and unharmed. Something easy.

Right now? I’m looking for bread crumbs. A pillow. Assurance that, no, the random assassin in my bedroom at night will not be successful in piercing my heart.