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I am so in the mood for Halloween this year.
Last night we stayed up late watching Silver Bullet. It’s one of those movies that still scares the beejeezus out of me even after all this time.
You know how when you’re a kid and the first thing you’re exposed to that really, really scares you tends to stick with you? Yeah, werewolves are mine.
The first horror movie I was allowed to watch all the way through was The Howling–which at age 8, set the scene for my werewolf fear that’s still present today.
What’s funny-and maybe not so funny-is that for my own kiddo, it’s not something like werewolves. It’s coyotes of all things. During the time he was a baby, toddler, and preschooler, we lived “in the country” on an acre of land that abutted some woods. One afternoon when he was around 2 years old, he and our 2 big dogs were outside in the back yard when I noticed a mated pair of coyotes, completely at ease & lying in the shade of the trees just outside our chain link fence.
I’ll be the first to admit, there was probably no real danger from the coyotes. But because I’d heard stories of coyotes jumping fences to prey on domestic dogs, and because our fence was very low, and I had a geriatric black Lab who couldn’t move very fast, and my baby was out there, seeing the coyotes so close kind of scared me. So, I hustled everybody inside for safety, and it was a s-l-o-w process. It seriously tested the limits of my dog and kiddo wrangling abilities that day.
The kiddo ended up being locked in the house alone, watching me through the window while I was outside with the coyotes (who continued to lay contentedly in the shade) for a good bit of time; long enough for it to scare him and make a lasting impression anyway. What’s interesting is that he was so young that he doesn’t have a memory of seeing the coyotes, but he has retained the memory of being afraid of them.
Even now when he occasionally has scary dreams, he dreams of coyotes or wolves chasing him.
Kinda like my werewolves.
Strange how the mind works and how certain fears last-what seems like-forever.
What were your first fears? Do you still have them today?
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