Freak out session

I laid in bed last night, waiting for something terrible to happen.  My mind raced from one scenario to the next.  My door clicked open at one point by itself.   I told myself that it was just because it was so windy out that the changing air pressure forced it open.  This is a regular occurrence in the nicer weather when there's a window open somewhere in the house.  I live in a big old colonial house that's full of creaks and squeaks and bumps in the night.  I remember lying in bed as a little girl, in the next room over from where I sleep now, frozen in terror over every little  shift and sound this old house makes.  And here I am now, 36 years old still losing sleep over my over active imagination. 

Now, it's a different situation, of course.  Now, after having watched way too many years of cop dramas, true crime, and nightly news, I lay awake afraid of real people, not the boogy man.  The newest news story of a psycho husband gone over the edge is that of  Josh Powell-- the Washington "man" that killed his two little boys and himself this week, and setting the house on fire.  This, after two years of denying that he had anything to do with his wife Susan going missing.  There's just way too may cases like this.  Men taking the lives of their wives and children when they don't get their way.  I caught just a few minutes of America's Most Wanted the other night while I was washing the dishes.  It featured Miguel Torres-- he shot and killed his wife in broad daylight because she was divorcing him.
It's scary. These men are so egocentric, they give themselves permission to play God... or that psychotic that their brains allow them to go into the killer mode with no sense of right and wrong.

Add my over exposure to media, to the fact that I really don't know what John is or is not capable of, it can lead to some sleepless nights and paranoia.   When we called  John at 7pm  say goodnight last night, he sounded like we had just woken him out of a sound sleep.  In the moment, I assumed that he was probably drinking, or that he had been drinking earlier and so he passed out. Later, as I was laying there frozen with fear, my mind went to all sorts of new dark places.  What if the reason he sounded so weird and hushed was because he was hiding in my basement waiting for me to fall asleep!  Earlier in the night, right after the boys went to bed, I heard some kind of knock, or bang sound somewhere in the house.  I got freaked out and wedged a dining room chair against the basement door.. So now, I had myself convinced that it was John..  When I say that I was frozen with fear, I mean it-- I didn't want to move.  I didn't want to turn my back to my bedroom door.  I weighed my options of what I should do.  Should I run downstairs and get a knife?  Or get one of my Dad's antique guns out of his collector lock box?  No, I don't want to have a weapon in my room, knowing that the boys make their way to my room every night..  With that said, I wondered if I should go to the boys room and lay in bed with them so I could protect them... But no, if John were coming for ME, then I don't want to lure him into their room where they could be hurt or where they would witness something terrible happen to me.   Eventually, I fell asleep.  With a tight neck and clenched jaw, I fell asleep.  I was startled, but then relieved when the boys made their ways into my bed in the early hours.  Glad to have us all together in one place. 

John's sentencing is coming up in 4 days. . I imagine that if he is going to have a psychotic break, this week would be a good time for it to happen.  So I guess I can anticipate a few more of these freak out sessions.

This is a picture of Miguel Torres from the America's Most Wanted web site.  He is still at large.  He might be in NY, Florida, Pennsylvania, or possibly the Dominican Republic.