Sunday Scribblings-The Monster

On the surface, this seems like an easy post. The monster under the bed or in the closet or outside the window. Oh, I've had those visits. The noises that made me jump in the night. Sometimes a smell or a " feeling ". I never met those monsters back then. I grew up.

But so did they.

I met the monster again in my early twenties. It came disguised in a bottle.

It began as a beautiful friendship. We'd go out on the weekends and had a wonderful time together. The monster had me seduced from the beginning. I felt smarter, funnier and more attractive. I'd even have it over during the week once in awhile and it had a way of making me more creative ... even brilliant, I thought. We quickly became inseparable. We spent nearly every evening together. When the monster moved in, things began to change.

Mornings were the hardest. The monster seemed different then. Unpredictable. I started waking with hurt feelings and nagging headaches. The monster offered no real comfort, just more of the same. When I tried to back off, the monster refused to let me go. When I threw it out of the house, it would instinctly know how to find me and get an invitation to come back in. Our relationship became less about the fear of the earlier years or the comradery of the middle years, and more about destruction and control. The monster won for awhile. I allowed it to stay, only because I couldn't find a way to make it leave. It lingered. Like a headache or a cold.

Over sixteen years ago I finally DID find a way to say goodbye. It wasn't pleasant and it wasn't easy. It's like I have a restraining order that is strictly enforced. It's always there. Around the corner, in the restaurant, at parties with friends ... but it stays away as long as I don't invite it back in.

I don't MISS the monster these days. I respect it.