The view from my bedroom window...

            My bedroom view required me to cover it with curtains. During my sophomore year of high school, my family moved to a different house in Portland that was in an extremely wooded neighborhood. In fact, it did not really seem like a neighborhood at all, but rather our house isolated in the middle of a dark, creepy, and wet wooded area. To make, matters even more depressing, my room was alone in the basement looking out into a forest. Now it may seem like I am setting this up to be a horror story, and that is true because this is a horror story. At first, I honestly thought I lucked out on getting the room in the basement because of more privacy that would allow me to play loud music, but three months into living in the house, I realized that I made a mistake that would haunt me for the next three years. One day, a friend of mine from the area was talking to me about how a man was found dead in the woods right outside my room. At first, I totally thought he was joking because this friend typically messed with me. When I asked his father, however, he confirmed that a neighborhood kid actually found the dead man and had to go to counseling for years to get over the incident. Still in disbelief that I was living in a house potentially haunted by a dead man that died right outside my room, I decided to do more reach. Unfortunately, the internet only confirmed what I did not want to be true. A man was found dead right by my room, but even creepier, he was found dead with no lacerations or any kind proof of murder or suicide. It was as if he just went, laid down, and died there. Although he most likely overdosed on something, I still think it is the creepiest thing ever. For fear of seeing his ghost outside my window, I closed my curtains and never once opened them again for the rest of the three years I lived in that house.  

            Actually, I think once during senior I opened the curtains because I wanted some sunshine, but then quickly closed them when the menacing woods reminded me of what happened. I have always been one to let my imagination get the best of me. I know deep down that his ghost would never have greeted me at the window, but I processed the actually quite sad event as fear. I let a man’s unfortunate ending that happened years ago escalate in my mind and keep me isolated in a dark room for years. Now that I am living in Texas, a place without towering pine trees and deep forests, all I want is the view from my old bedroom. To be honest, I truly do not even know what it looks like, but I imagine it all the time. My family recently moved to Idaho, but when we visited Portland over Thanksgiving, we drove through my old neighborhood. All I could think about was how I shut myself out from such beauty for so many years. I realized that I let a nonexistent fear control my life. Part of growing up is differentiating between real and non-real fear. Although it took me awhile to realize how childish I had been in that house, I now know to evaluate the fears that I have. Fear often disguises itself as something that does not exist. I try not to waste my life on fake fear now, but I still run into it from time to time.