When I was little, it was just my mom and I in this tiny tiny house in a small town. I have a freakishly good memory, so I can clearly remember the layout of my tiny room (which was the laundry room from the previous owners). It was long and narrow, with just enough room for my crib against one wall and a window high up on the other.
Now I’ve always hated windows at night. I won’t look out them, I keep the curtains shut or run past them. My fear has always been that I’ll look out and see a face staring back.
After a bad breakup in my early twenties I move back home with my mom and, after she observed this behavior, I told her my weird paranoia. She kind of laughed and proceeded to tell me when I was about two I would scream and scream that there was a man in my window. I had nightmares so she didn’t really think much of it until one night she came in to shut me up and there he was. A fucking man staring in the window. I looked at her like she was nuts. How could I not have known this?! Then she continued to tell me that man was the father of one of my really good friends growing up. He was know for peeping into single woman’s windows.
She also didn’t tell me I had a benign heart murmur and when the doctor discovered it in once again my early twenties, that scared the shit out of me too.
Thanks mom.
