Last night there was a storm. I saw the flashes of light through my closed eyelids but at the first hint of thunder my eyes sprang open.
It’s not lightning and thunder that scare me. Well, ok, lightning scares me if I’m outside, but when I’m snug in my bed these things are merely fascinating natural phenomena. It’s only when I live in a climate that is prone to tornado producing storms that I get really scared. Tornadoes… Don’t let my theatrical joking fool you (“It’s coming to get me!” or “OMG, we’re all gonna DIE!”) because it’s just a cover for my lilapsophobia. For years I used to have constant nightmares about tornadoes. Sometimes they were strange. Me, driving through a city, bombarded by random chaos while dodging twister after twister. Sometimes they were more realistic. Me, sitting at home, the twister getting closer and closer and finally ripping apart the house so that I felt myself get sucked into sky while being battered by debris, then I’d wake up shaking.
So yeah, I am intensely afraid of storms in places where tornadoes are known to occur.
At first the thunder was just thunder, but then suddenly it was the sound of the earth splitting apart all around me. It was massive, pulsating, rattling the walls and reverberating in my bones. I jumped up and ran to Tristan’s room to see how he was handling the smash banging of the ground cracking open (and hellfire spewing out, I’m sure) and at first I thought he was asleep. But how? Then I realized he was moving a little, peeking at the windows from under his teddy bear.
I picked him up, doing my best not to let him see my terror, and carried him to my bed. Tristan stopped sleeping in my bed when he was only a couple months old, so he didn’t know what to make of it. He talked softly to himself and put his little hand on my arm, then he grabbed my hand. At around 1:50am I couldn’t take the infernal noise anymore and I asked Tristan “Do you want to watch Sesame Street?” Tristan sprang up with a grin and we went to the living room so Tristan’s favorite show could drown out the storm-noise. Tristan seemed thrilled with his get out of bed free card and at around 3am, when the storm had calmed, we both went to bed feeling more relaxed.
I hate storms. I hate being so afraid of them. I don’t want Tristan seeing me scared. I’m Mama! I’m supposed to be fearless and brave and all that jazz. I’m freaking Superwoman! Right? In my way, I suppose I am.
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In the morning I went to get Tristan and he had is feet under his pillow and his arm flung up over his head so of course I ran for the camera. Unfortunately the alarm beeps when I disable it so Tristan woke up before I could capture his comical pose, but I did manage to snap a few amusing pictures anyway:
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Now let’s see if I can catch up on some of the sleep I missed out on last night…
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