BUGS

I had an insane fear of bugs as a child and into my adult life. An unreasonably insane fear I would call it; ants, moths, spiders, roaches, beetles, it didn’t make any difference. Why was I so afraid when I was so much bigger than they are? Even as a child I was much bigger than a spider or a beetle. Yet I would be rendered to a mass of quivering, terrified, boneless flesh if in near proximity to an insect.

When I was in the first grade, my mom hollered for me to get up and get ready for school. It was in the winter and my room was still dark and shadowed. As I started to rise, I saw what looked like a very big bug, or something, on my clothes that were on the dresser across from the foot of my bed. I was immobilized by fear. “Get out of that bed, you’re gonna be late” my mom yells, but I can’t even yell back. I was in the grip of terror. Finally I gradually slithered out from under my covers and inched toward the bedroom door, never taking my eyes off of the “bug”. Once I hit the light in the hallway, I ran to the kitchen and told my mom about the monster bug. I was in tears, my heart pounding against my chest like a gorilla beating against a cage. “What is it?” she asked. “I don’t know, it’s dark in there.” I cry. “Well, that’s what lights are for. Go turn on the light, brush it away, and get dressed. Breakfast is almost ready.” she admonishes. “I’m scaaaarrrredddd.” I whine. She slams the spoon down and marches down the hall saying, “This better be a really big bug.” Into my room she goes, flipping on the light switch and there on the dresser is my pile of clothes and the biggest, darkest indentation of cloth leaving a shadow that you could have ever expected. No bug… just a shadow. I was so relieved.

I was the second oldest child, an only daughter with three brothers. At the ripe old age of ten, I was sharing a bedroom with my youngest brother who was four years younger than me. I had been begging for my own room and finally my dad fixed up the basement for me. It was a small room with wooden shelves on one wall and my twin bed against the opposite wall. I loved it. One afternoon, shortly after moving my things down there to my little haven, I was laying on my bed reading a book (probably a Nancy Drew story which I loved) and as I was turning a page, I lookup up and saw a spider on the wall next to me. I rolled out of that bed so fast it was probably invisible to the human eye. I was on the bed one moment, standing next to it and staring at the wall the next; MAGIC. But I was scared. I couldn’t kill the spider; that would bring me too close to it, besides it would leave all that icky, bloody, gut mess on the wall, and I didn’t want to be close to that either. It was just as scary. What to do? I ran upstairs to my hero, my dad, and told him about the spider. Do you want to know what my hero did? This is my HERO I’m talking about. He told me to go and kill it. MY HERO! How could he betray my need like that? I was devastated. I told him that I couldn’t, I was scared. He said if I was too afraid of the spider then I could move back into the room with my little brother and my older brother, who had wanted the room, could move down there. Guess what I did? I went back downstairs, pulled my bed away from the wall and sat on the edge. The spider was gone by then, but I had determined that I would try to kill it if it had still been there. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I STARTED getting over my fear. I still don’t like them but I’m not terrified anymore. I grabbed a Praying Mantis a few months ago and carried it outside to set it free. My heart was fluttering like a swarm of bees beating against a glass wall, but I did it. A few weeks after that, I took a beetle that had gotten into my house outside and dropped it over my third floor balcony. I hope it didn’t die on impact but I didn’t want it coming back in either. I figured it would have quite a crawl to come back up three floors and maybe it wouldn’t want to. Hmmm, I wonder if it had wings and impact wasn’t an issue. Anyway, I’m getting over my unreasonable fear of bugs and I’m proud of myself.