The Boogeyman

Ever since I can remember I have loved getting scared.
As a teenager there was nothing better than slumber parties with the girls, with them shrieking in terror hidden inside their sleeping bags while I screamed at the TV telling the characters to stop being so stupid!
Freddy, Michael, Jason and Chucky were the men in my life and I couldn't get enough of them.
To get scared was such a thrill and so hard to come by that I would seek any way to feel it. Jumping out of planes, filming in war zones, picking up spiders and my idea of an ultimate good time is sitting all alone in a cinema with a horror movie playing.
So last night when I couldn't sleep, I tried to work out what my problem was. I began to realise that my lack of slumber was because I was... afraid. No there was no killers in the house or drip, drip, drip coming from the kitchen, this was far worse.
I was afraid of living.
The idea of traveling alone freaked me out, the idea of being successful make me feel sick and the idea of doing anything differently made me want to find some killers to help distract me from my own crap.
Normally I coveted being scared, I relished the feeling - yet here I was trying my best to make it go away.
I suddenly wanted to be one of the girls with their heads in their sleeping bags, willing all the decisions in my life to be simple and without change.
I put it down to getting old. Maybe the time had finally come where I was "settling" and this was my life. I watched other people live this kind of life every day, like they didn't have a choice about their destinies. Yes maybe this was my time to join the production line.
Then this thought scared the shit out of me more than seeing Michael Myers in the flesh (that may be a small lie as nothing is scarier than Michael Myers) and I realised that maybe I was just more practical in my old age. Rather than look for ways to freak myself out and dive into things I would slow down a little bit and think things through.
So instead of taking a day to think about whether I would go to my 20th year reunion in Nebraska I took two and rather than go walking by myself at night I now wear a miner's light to spot any nasties.
Yep, I may be getting old and therefore wise but I will hopefully always embrace getting scared and out of my comfort zone.
Oh and this weekend I am sleeping overnight at an old asylum.
Yep still got it!