Friendship Truly is Magic

The other night I forced myself to work on my story that has been languishing in Limbo with a handful of paragraphs left to write and/or type out. I don't think I'd wrote a single word for it in weeks, if not a few months. I don't even know. It's hard for me to keep track of time. This past year has been brutal.

Last year at Easter my mother died, killed by cancer. It was horrible. Even worse that I was there when it happened. It haunts me to this day. They say there are several stages of grief, including one of anger. I definitely went through that. It got my dander up that my mother, one of the nicest friends anyone could have, died in such a horrid, agonizing fashion. There were no rallies for her, no riots, no presidential statements.

My mother used to organize a 'Girl's Night Out' every month to try a new restaurant, see a play, watch a movie, go to a concert, and things like that. Her friends no longer partake in that tradition, they lost their leader - their friend - and no one else wanted to try and fill that void.

Most of my friends have moved away or work different hours so I never see them anymore. It's a scheduling nightmare so I never have anyone to go to a baseball game with or out to dinner. It sucks. Mostly I just have a handful of people on Xbox and things like that, and although I've known some for years I wouldn't really feel comfortable confiding in them about some things, you know? After my mother died, the ones that were still around came over to see me for a few weeks in a row, then vanished once more. I really regret that they did, if only they had been around still in July... It was a dark and stormy night, as cliche as that has become, pitch black with strong winds by maybe 8 PM. I was here, alone, and I heard a familiar sound - the rattling of the garage door handle. My roommate was working that night and I didn't know their schedule so I figured it was them coming home.

A few minutes pass, I never heard anyone actually come in. Intrigued, I walk out to the garage, see the motion detector light is on, but don't see any car out there. Maybe they forgot something at work, I thought. Fear began to set in and I hurried back to grab my cellphone. A short while later I heard a loud, metallic sound, seeming to come from the back of the house, and in my mind I believed it to be the sound of someone trying to open the door at the patio. There were windows open upstairs so it could have also been a gust smacking something around up there, but the motion sensor light was on by the door when I looked out there. (Which also could have been the wind, maybe, but probably not...) I kept debating whether to call the police or not, and those thoughts were interrupted by a loud THUMP as something, or possibly some scumbag, kicked or hit something near the garage area.

I really regret not calling the police that night. Afterwards everyone I talked to was incredulous that I hadn't. I have depression, as in diagnosed 'something is wrong with you' depression. I don't have medication for it either as I was too scared back then to take it; I constantly was planning to kill myself, I didn't want to have to take drugs that would increase that risk. So, I definitely don't think like 'normal' and the thing that kept me from dialing that 9-1-1 was the doubts that what I was hearing was actually what I thought and wasn't just the wind, because it was very strong winds. It was dumb, I'm sure (hey, I am blonde...) but the doubt combined with the usual feelings of despair, hopelessness, and worthlessness that I deal with every day made me not want to waste their time if it was nothing.

I'm not sure if it would be considered PTSD or just anxiety, but for months after that night - and still a bit to this day - I have had extreme anxiety attacks and crippling fear about someone breaking in. Every noise at night gets my heart racing. I had to make sure the door that is between the office and the backdoor was closed and locked, as a second layer of protection and because I was paranoid someone could be outside looking in at me. When this happened there was a Simpsons marathon going on and my roommate thought it would help to leave that on with the volume up. It is amazing how many 'breaking glass' sound effects are used in that show...

I would say that night was the most scared I have been as even thinking about it and writing about it has set my anxiety into overload, but perhaps a qualifier is needed and that may have been the most terrified I have been with a, sadly, real threat. The most terrified I have been came a few weeks or maybe a month after that initial incident.

I was sitting here in my office, it was around 3 AM. I was playing a game with one of my friends I met on there. Roommate had gone to bed I want to say a few minutes prior, Simpsons was still on. I walked over to the little bar area we have downstairs and grabbed a cream soda, opening and closing and locking the door, as was my ritual by this point, on the way through.

My anxiety went into DEFCON 1 as I heard a really loud noise sometime after. Great. I stopped playing and listened. Everything was quiet, except the Simpsons of course and my heart beating out of my chest. I headed upstairs to check, roommate was definitely in bed and sound asleep already, very unlikely they made the sound. Alarmed, I made my way back to my desk and tried to focus on the game again. My paranoid instincts made me look towards the door that I had supposedly closed and locked, only to see it open by a few inches.

Like Dashie, I bolted upstairs, freaked the hell out as I heard sounds of something from downstairs in my wake, and made my way to the roommate's room, locking the door behind me. She was extremely confused when she woke up, which took a while, so they were definitely passed out. I quickly explained what had happened, and since her room was next to the stairs we waited and listened, but heard nothing. She asked if I wanted her to call the police and I said, "What else can we do?" If someone is depraved enough to break into another person's home, who knows what they are willing to do, right?

I was absolutely terrified. My heart was pounding, I was quivering, paralyzed with dread, just utterly helpless; it was a magical experience, in retrospect. I guess I do have the heart, or at least the mindset, of a writer because I thought, If I survive this, I need to write down what I am experiencing right now, this is terror. I can't remember if I did or not. If I did, it should be included somewhere in the story I've been working on, as there's a certain little terror demon that makes a few lives hell.

The sheriffs arrived in a pretty impressive response time, and I followed along like a dog at its master's heels as they checked the house. There was no sign of intrusion that they could see. I felt stupid. I don't know how, and it seems improbable, but I must have left that door open, even though I remember turning the lock. As they were in their vehicles and doing whatever, the roommate and I were standing near the stairs - me apologizing profusely - when we heard a noise from the upstairs. Bothered the officers again, they cleared it (I was embarrassed because I had books all over the floor of my room...), and there was kind of a good cop-bad cop thing going on, sort of, as one of them was clearly annoyed while the other was sympathetic. They then checked everything in and around the house to make sure it was safe.

Still don't know what the hell made that loud noise, though.

As much as I hate myself for letting my fears get the best of me, I think actually calling for help that second time did alleviate some of the stress and anxiety. Not by much, as I was, and to a lesser degree, am, still living with fear, but enough that I eventually was able to calm down and make it through the night. That door isn't even closed right now, and now that I've thought about it I'm confused as to whether that is really a good thing, you know, 'cause getting complacent like that can lead to security no-no's. The garage where all this began has several doors: a door leading outside, the garage doors, and a door between the garage and the foyer. We used to lock that interior door, now it's left open usually. Sometimes I've even come down to find either of the doors leading outside have just been left open, in addition to that interior one. That's disconcerting.

Anyway, enough of that. I initially was writing this to give a little update: I'm still here, I am ashamed to say I'm still not done with this story, I've been a mess this past year and am surprised I got as much done on it as I did, and I hope you all have close friends to make your life better. I was reminiscing about my childhood friend, who lived right next door. We lived next to a Sweet Apple Acres type farm, a little cul-de-sac surrounded by fields, orchards, and forest. Oh, how we loved exploring the area. There was a little creek across one of the fields and this little grove of trees straddled it. We'd head out there every day and sit in our little 'fort'. We'd go swimming - in a pool, not the creek - and then lay our towels down on the driveway and just let the sun dry us off.

Around fourth or fifth grade I knew things were not going to last. My friend, who lived right next door mind you, was distancing herself from me and suddenly became all about one of our other friends, who lived a few blocks away but we had both known since kindergarten. I started to call them 'lion and lion tamer' because they were always at each others' side. It must have been during 6th grade when she completely began ignoring me, as messed up as that is to remember, as that was the last year I was invited to her birthday party.

She really loved chicken wings so her dad had made a bunch. It was a slumber party and they had a big tent set up in the backyard. First we had been playing this thing we called 'manhunt' where everyone hid around outside at night and one person tried to find you. One of the girls had, for reasons unknown, gone down the hill and went all the way to the nearby major roadway. Thinking back on it, maybe she was just messing with us, but she said someone had been trying to follow her but had stopped. So we called an end to the manhunt and got in the tent, which had been set up really far away from the house. They decided to play truth or dare, I always hated that and tried not to partake, and began questioning each other about who their crush was and other tomfoolery, you know. This devolved into my friend revealing some things that were pretty FUBAR. Remember, this is when we were around 12-13. She had been stealing her dad's cigars to smoke and drinking beer. With no hesitation she described the method she had been using to, uh, touch herself. I couldn't believe it, as I had never even considered doing any of that stuff at that age. I really wonder what kind of messed up upbringing she had behind closed doors, and it is not really surprising to see that her parents are divorced now.

Kind of going off what I talked about earlier, as this was all going on we heard a strange sound outside the tent. They asked me if I had done that since I was next to the 'wall,' which I hadn't but, and this is really silly, I remember debating if I should say, "Welcome to your nightmare!" as creepily as I could, as that (or something like it) was a line from Clay Fighters or a similarly named game which I had rented. I didn't, though, but I sorta wish I had. Sometime after that, one of them brought out a porno magazine they had smuggled in and began reading the letters to the editor and looking at the photos.

I remember being over at my friend's house once, she had recently got a bunk bed and she was on the top bunk. We had been playing and I wanted to play with the My Little Pony but she wanted to play with Barbies. We had to have been, geez, maybe 6 years old at the time, and I remember her trying to get me to say, "Look at these sexy girls." to the Barbies. I refused, and was astonished she was saying that. She always had kind of a vulgar streak, at least to me anyway. We both had Intellivisions (like an Atari, old school, outdated video game system, but we didn't care because it was what we had and it was fun. I even had the IntelliVoice thing and B-17 Bomber, which my mother always laughed at due to the one, supposedly Southern accented voice sounding so odd) and we had this co-op spelling game where you were wagons or something shooting letters into word-clouds that scrolled by. She would always try to hit an A into D_M and giggle maniacally when she succeeded.

So, maybe I'm just prudish, but I didn't care about the magazine, but finally relented to take a look after being mocked about it. It's... saddening the kinds of things you remember, while other knowledge just fades away. I can still remember the page I was shown for the most part. I probably shouldn't describe it here, but I could, I unfortunately could...

I ended up leaving early due to feeling queasy, a combination of spicy wings, cake, soda, and just a general feeling of "Nope!". Luckily I lived right next door so it was no big deal to leave. I told my mom I wasn't feeling well and she got me some medicine and let me watch TV. I think that Young Frankenstein movie was on, I barely remember watching a black and white monster movie.

The last time I talked to my neighbor, not counting minor encounters during high school, was our 6th grade graduation. We were bringing her with us because her parents were at work. We played a videogame, Goldeneye 64, in silence, and that was the last time she ever came over to my house. The friendship was dead by then anyway. She never really talked to me, but you better believe she talked about me to anyone she could.

I guess that is why I enjoy Friendship is Magic as much as I do. I want to live in that world, I could name many reasons for that but to stay on topic it would be to have amazing friends, because friendship really is magic when you think about it. Friends can be connections to help you get a career going. Friends can be there in your times of need. If you're cursed like me and have a memory that just won't forget certain things, the memories you make with your friends can be simply wondrous. Things that will make you smile, years and years later.

It sucks if you get burned, but all it takes is one new friend to help you forget the bad and make a whole bunch of new, fun memories. Memories that just may last a lifetime.