Paranoid? Me?

Ever so often I wander throughout my entire apartment checking every closet, double checking the locks on every outward facing door and window (not the balcony ones), peering under beds and behind couches.

Just in case.

Just in case of what you ask?

Burglar.  Rapist.  Killer.  Serial Killer.  Torturer.  Now add kidnapper to my list.

I've see enough episodes of Criminal Minds to freak out every once in a great while.

And this is the mellowed out paranoid version of me.

Most of my friends have heard the stories of how I would lie in bed at night when I lived alone in my twenties and imagine someone rappelling from the roof onto my fourth floor balcony, using a glass cutter to get into my locked windows or door, just to torture me.  Not kill.  Because that was too easy.  Torture.

For a couple of years I couldn't watch scary movies at all because they gave me horrible nightmares and I was rendered incapable of sweetly sleeping.

All of this terror from a woman who, as a girl, loved to be scared.  I looked for scary movies, sought out ghost stories, was obsessed with vampires and witches.  I used to stay out way past curfew, wandering the streets, just to be out in the dark.

I never did drugs.  I wasn't even interested in the bad boys I hung around with, often ditching them just to wander alone at night.  At fourteen.

My poor mother.

I thought I was immortal.

Then, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, I fell to the earth from my lofty position of untouchability.  Everything was a danger, and real danger, too.  Every man walking after dark was out to harm me, every noise in the night someone coming to get me.  I still wasn't really afraid of the supernatural, but the real life possibility of a human being intent on hurting me was an imminent, overwhelming threat in my mind.

Ultimately, I think this bizarre experience I had in my twenties is what has turned me into such an adventurous person.  When I was a girl, I would take on any stupid, crazy dare.  As a young woman, I hid under the covers.  And as a compromise between the two, as a grown woman, I will confront any real life challenge.  Now I pull back the shower curtain when the uncanny feeling strikes me.  I charge into the dark room to face my fear.  I ride my bike home from BART at night, reminding myself that not every man walking past is dangerous.  I get on the plane.  I climb the mountain.  When I feel the fear start to creep up on me, I face it, directly.

This coping mechanism is another reason I am glad I had my daughter at a later age.  Because that is precisely what I employ, a coping mechanism.  I have not eliminated my tendency toward irrational fear.  Just the other night as I lay in bed, awakened in the middle of the night by whatever random apartment noise, I imagined myself being beaten bloody in front of my daughter by a neighbor.  I visualized it happening.  I saw myself telling my daughter to run, hoping that she would get away, that someone would come save her.  Why this 2 AM scenario?  Because I hear him screaming and yelling at his girlfriend/wife in the apartment below me late at night and have called security to file a noise complaint.  My paranoid brain just cooked up this highly unlikely, insanely improbable violent scene from a tiny kernel.

But, instead of being incapacitated by these images, I tell myself I'm being ridiculous, change the channel in my head, and go back to sleep.  I still call security when I feel it is necessary.  I still call the cops on suspicious people loitering in the park across the street.  And I still walk the streets with my head high, encouraging my daughter to do the same.  Because I am a mother now.  "Mother," in my head, means courage and strength.

Would I love to trap her in a bubble?  Sometimes.  Keep her safe, inside, protected?  Of course.

But then what am I teaching her about courage and strength?  Nothing good.

So we venture out, we cross busy streets, she climbs jungle gyms, she runs willy nilly in her little boots (me worrying the whole time that she'll face plant into the concrete), and I encourage her to be bold.  I swear I will not put the worrying images in her head that I carry around with me.

She is currently going through her fear stage, fear of loud noises, of doors opening and closing, of bugs, of things she once thought nothing of.  And I remind myself that I must show her how to overcome her fears, how to face them, how to seek out the loud noise, to walk through the door, to chase the bugs.

I thought of how much she learns just from watching us when I saw her kick Lucas, our big orange cat, in the butt a few weeks ago as he was heading out of the room.  Her father does this often, just a light tap with the side of his foot, giving Lucas' ambling shape a little scoot.  When I pointed her mimicking behavior out to him he commented that he never realized the impact of our thoughtless actions on her and that has to be more careful about what he does now.

The other day I had the chance to stand up and be brave in front of my daughter when I walked through the kitchen and, glancing up toward the ceiling, noticed a spider with a body roughly the size of a nickel directly above me.  At first, I'll be honest, I ducked and hurried through the entryway.  Then I announced to my highly observant, ever watchful toddler that "mama has to kill a spider, so stay here."  I set her down just outside the kitchen and let her watch as I went for a broom and a big book.  I knocked the spider down from the ceiling, prepared to drop the book on it once it fell, but, to my dismay, the little bastard darted under the stove.  So I did the only reasonable thing; I thrust the broom quickly several times under the stove, making big sweeping motions, bringing up every cobweb, refrigerator letter magnet, and old broken piece of glass I could get to.

And lo and behold, there came my fresh kill, the dead body of the big, juicy spider.

Now, I know it's just a spider, and not a killer neighbor or a jagged piece of concrete, but I was my daughter's hero in that moment.  She was amazed and in awe of me.  And this confidence, that admiring gaze, her pure trust in me to be courageous is enough to keep me battling back my paranoia demons and walking boldly into the next challenge, be it big or small.

For days afterward, spontaneously, my 20 month old daughter would remind me, "mama kill spider with a broom."

Yes.  Mama did.