A suspicious person

An odd thing happened today and I’m not even talking politics, here. Mr. Takeayear took an out of town class that required him to stay away overnight. It was the first night he has been away from home in almost a month and I thought I totally had the solo parenting thing down (which I am accustomed to when we are on our regular routine and he is on shift). But the second to last thing he said to me today before he left was to stay alert and safe and all those husbandy-good-dad kinds of things.

Tonight, I had a movie night in our room with the girls and shortly after Little Sister fell asleep the dog started barking. I figured maybe it was a raccoon spied through the slider – or maybe it was nothing at all, but when I looked out the speakeasy on the front door I saw a car parked across the street from our house. I couldn’t tell if there was someone in it (maybe that would be good?) or not (maybe that would be better?). I called my life wife down the street who sent out her real life husband to do a drive by (we can never move, I need this arrangement permanently…). Then I took our dog outside to potty – while on the phone and calling out things like “Down, Boy”! And “Oh, no, mister, You aren’t mauling another person this week”! (Kidding-ish).

He took down the license plate and I called my husband to fill him in (which is totally a bad idea when your husband is three hours away and a could probably thwart a would be assassin telepathically like I imagine Chuck Norris might – but what about the accuracy in Jedi-mind jaw breaking – I’ve grown accustomed to my face in its current arrangement…) After I hung up with him and dialed the first few digits of the non-emergency local police line the car had left.
I had wondered who would park there temporarily and what they were doing. Could it be a shady drug deal going down? Was someone being held against their will in that car? Was someone out to get me – clearly jealous of the raw talent I demonstrate day after day on this blog?!

What if it was far worse than all of that? What if the suspicious person was actually me?

It could have been a person driving home and getting a text alert that their bank account was overdrawn, pulling over to yell “REPRESENTATIVE” into their phone at least eleven times before being informed that due to “unusually high call volume” (and possibly the stock market crashing) their expected wait time would be approximately for…ever.

But I reacted with fear and the need to protect my schmoopies and myself. I would not go gently, no way. I would fight and scrap and claw my way to the…to the what exactly? Who was I?!

Now, I am a huge supporter of trusting your instincts and going with your gut about things – if you feel unsafe or unsure trust that. Right now, today, I know that I am not the only one who feels a little unsure and while that is okay for today it can’t stay. I can’t push out the good and hopeful and stuff it full of bad and scary and worst case scenarios. Or maybe I can, but I won’t.

I am lucky that I have safety nets of people and backups and procedures to keep me and my family from harm. But no one can protect them from any gloomy doomsday declarations I make – because I am responsible for the energy I bring into my space, we all are.