Scared
I'm scared of a lot of things.
I'm scared of the ocean,
I'm scared of lifelike dolls,
I'm scared of the dark,
I'm scared of broom closets.
When I'm scared of something, I tend to avoid it. Like any normal person, I'm not really interested in "facing my fears" or doing anything particularly heroic.
So, I avoid the ocean,
I avoid doll sections in toy stores,
I try to sleep before dark,
and I always walk quickly past broom closets.
It's always been easy.
Just walk away from your fears, and everything will turn out okay. My fears themselves aren't that scary if I reassure myself like this.
What's scary is if I one day find a fear that I can't just turn away from.
...
As I grow older, I'll start to understand little things that confused me when I was younger.
I have this clear memory of a day in first grade, where our teacher was explaining fire and lockdown drills to us. She was smiling, she was relaxed, and she was confident, which made us feel the same.
When she sat down on the rug in front of us, and asked if we had any questions or concerns about the system, the class chorused a huge amount of "what if" questions, and "what then" statements. She gracefully answered every question, and made sure to paint the picture that our emergency situation system had no loopholes, no danger.
"There is no way anything in the world can hurt you if you follow these instructions, and listen to the rules."
I, at one point, had raised my hand.
She called on me, and I asked her the question that had been ringing in my head.
"What if the dangerous person went to our school? Wouldn't he know where all the hiding spots are, and couldn't he pull the fire alarm and know exactly where we are and where we're going?"
I, as a child, only felt the satisfaction of asking a question that the teacher didn't know the answer to, and relished the silence that came before the inevitable, and satisfying "I don't know."
My teacher instead decided to reply,
"What if a dangerous person comes here? Well, they won't see us, because our hiding places are just invisible from the door or the window."
It was a simple answer to divert the children's attention from the legitimate question and reinforce their feeling of safety that they felt with the system.
As a child, had no idea. I thought it was extremely strange, because I was sure I had phrased it clearly, and I was sure that she could understand what I was talking about if she tried, but she hadn't.
I tried calling out one more time.
"What I meant was-"
And my teacher turned to me for a split second and fixed me with a glare so intense that I bit my tongue and shut up for the rest of the day.
I didn't understand why she wouldn't let me answer my question, or why she wouldn't even let me ask it. But, I became scared that she would glare at me or yell at me again, so I never tried to ask.
I realize later, much later, why she did that. To keep us ignorant, to make us think we were safe, that we were protected by our flawed system, she kept the flaws in the dark, invisible from our innocent eyes.
I never kept up with the news, and I only knew the world from gossip and conversations I overheard in the hallways.
One day, I heard about a school shooting, about a boy who shot and killed his peers with a gun he had brought to school.
I asked how he did it, and the answer made a click in my brain.
"He pulled the fire alarm, and he memorized the routes, so he shot as they went outside."
Everything from that day suddenly clicked into place.
I was so scared of the teacher that I hadn't bothered to even consider the much more terrifying chance that she didn't know. She didn't know the answer.
...
How can you avoid a fear that's somewhere you can't avoid?
I'm afraid of school.
I'm afraid of leaving my house one day without saying "I love you" to my mom and never coming back.
But it's not just school.
I'm afraid that when I walk outside, someone will just round a corner and pull out a gun and kill me.
I've become afraid of people.
But that's not something I can just avoid.
Even small animals will die from loneliness, and humans are no different.
If I want to live, I have to grind my teeth and push forward, desperately clinging onto an existence that can stab me in the back at any given moment.
I'm scared.
I'm scared of the ocean,
I'm scared of lifelike dolls,
I'm scared of the dark,
I'm scared of broom closets.
When I'm scared of something, I tend to avoid it. Like any normal person, I'm not really interested in "facing my fears" or doing anything particularly heroic.
So, I avoid the ocean,
I avoid doll sections in toy stores,
I try to sleep before dark,
and I always walk quickly past broom closets.
It's always been easy.
Just walk away from your fears, and everything will turn out okay. My fears themselves aren't that scary if I reassure myself like this.
What's scary is if I one day find a fear that I can't just turn away from.
...
As I grow older, I'll start to understand little things that confused me when I was younger.
I have this clear memory of a day in first grade, where our teacher was explaining fire and lockdown drills to us. She was smiling, she was relaxed, and she was confident, which made us feel the same.
When she sat down on the rug in front of us, and asked if we had any questions or concerns about the system, the class chorused a huge amount of "what if" questions, and "what then" statements. She gracefully answered every question, and made sure to paint the picture that our emergency situation system had no loopholes, no danger.
"There is no way anything in the world can hurt you if you follow these instructions, and listen to the rules."
I, at one point, had raised my hand.
She called on me, and I asked her the question that had been ringing in my head.
"What if the dangerous person went to our school? Wouldn't he know where all the hiding spots are, and couldn't he pull the fire alarm and know exactly where we are and where we're going?"
Thinking back to it, I vividly remember my teacher flinch when I asked, but because I never figured out why, I didn't pay much attention to it.
I, as a child, only felt the satisfaction of asking a question that the teacher didn't know the answer to, and relished the silence that came before the inevitable, and satisfying "I don't know."
My teacher instead decided to reply,
"What if a dangerous person comes here? Well, they won't see us, because our hiding places are just invisible from the door or the window."
It was a simple answer to divert the children's attention from the legitimate question and reinforce their feeling of safety that they felt with the system.
As a child, had no idea. I thought it was extremely strange, because I was sure I had phrased it clearly, and I was sure that she could understand what I was talking about if she tried, but she hadn't.
I tried calling out one more time.
"What I meant was-"
And my teacher turned to me for a split second and fixed me with a glare so intense that I bit my tongue and shut up for the rest of the day.
I didn't understand why she wouldn't let me answer my question, or why she wouldn't even let me ask it. But, I became scared that she would glare at me or yell at me again, so I never tried to ask.
I realize later, much later, why she did that. To keep us ignorant, to make us think we were safe, that we were protected by our flawed system, she kept the flaws in the dark, invisible from our innocent eyes.
I never kept up with the news, and I only knew the world from gossip and conversations I overheard in the hallways.
One day, I heard about a school shooting, about a boy who shot and killed his peers with a gun he had brought to school.
I asked how he did it, and the answer made a click in my brain.
"He pulled the fire alarm, and he memorized the routes, so he shot as they went outside."
Everything from that day suddenly clicked into place.
I was so scared of the teacher that I hadn't bothered to even consider the much more terrifying chance that she didn't know. She didn't know the answer.
...
How can you avoid a fear that's somewhere you can't avoid?
I'm afraid of school.
I'm afraid of leaving my house one day without saying "I love you" to my mom and never coming back.
But it's not just school.
I'm afraid that when I walk outside, someone will just round a corner and pull out a gun and kill me.
I've become afraid of people.
But that's not something I can just avoid.
Even small animals will die from loneliness, and humans are no different.
If I want to live, I have to grind my teeth and push forward, desperately clinging onto an existence that can stab me in the back at any given moment.
I'm scared.
yayayayayay LOVE ITTTT
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