I decided to write about fear. It is something I know well and would be easy for me to write about. I don't know if you would call it a phobia of life, or just a general paranoia. Everyone is afraid of something. But me, I am afraid of everything. I have noticed this now staying in our new home, alone. This has brought out some of the worst nightmares, and silliest, humiliating stories of my life.
             I can't pinpoint the exact moment when I started being generally afraid of everything. I can't even say for sure where it stems from. My only guess is that this insecurity is the result of an unstable, insecure childhood. After divorcing my father, my mother married the biggest, drunkest, most abusive gentlemen callers that she could find lounging on the bar stools at the local bars. I would literally sleep with one eye open, waiting for the moment when I would have to spring out of bed to the dispatch the police.
             There are two different types of general fear that I experience most. There is the realistic fears, of say, being robbed or being raped, and there are the silly fears of the ghosts and the boogie man.
             Everyone has the realistic fears. The fear of waking up to the sound of someone breaking into your house, walking down a dark alley, or your child getting kidnapped in a mall. Everyone thinks about these things, but I dwell on them until I jump at every sound. It is a fear of my own house that is so strong, that I am afraid to stay alone and afraid to go to bed without checking the windows and doors.
             The silly, unrealistic fears are a little easier to push out of my mind, but still surface unexpectedly once in a while. These are the fears of ghosts, monsters and goblins. This is the fear of doing laundry in the basement because Freddy Krueger could be down there. It is ridiculous, unjustified thoughts like this that send me dashing up the stairs.
             I am more easily influenced than ...