Come on Out -- Wink Wink

As much as I like to bury my head in the sand.  I need to see the monster under my bed.

When I was a little girl and I slept in a bed full of other little girls I would sometimes have nightmares.  Not very often, however, I did have them.  They were ususally filled with the usual suspects: giant spiders, cracks in the sidewalk that would be full of bugs, and the worse one of all was stepping on a crack and breaking my mother's back.  No mommy for you bad girl, bad girl.  No mommy for you because you broke her back.  Looking back, I can now attribute that particular dream to a little girl's game being played on the way to school.

Now my nightmares have taken on a different cast and as well, most of them happen while I am awake.  Where once my nightmares were based in fiction, they are now based in reality.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I remember thinking 'Okay, I can do this, lots of people have it and there is a good success rate.'  I went on the computer right away and saw that inflamatory breast cancer had a 100% mortality rate.  

This is where I first met the monster that lives under my bed.  I left the computer and went straight to bed.  Within seconds the monster had crawled out from under my bed and was lying on top of me.  Just as he was getting ready to tear my head off I was saved.  Nadalene came into my bed and put her arm around me.  As she did so, I felt the monster slinking back under the bed where he belongs.

From that day on I knew I needed to keep my eye on him.  So I look at that ugly monster whenever I see it making a move to crawl back into my bed.  I look him straight in the eye and we have a conversation.  He tells me what I don't want to hear.  He even has a mirror that he makes me look into.  This conversation usually goes on for a few weeks.

The conversation always happens in the same way and is always proceeded by a very dark sky.

And the most terrifying threat of all is the beast that can't be seen—the hideous Thing lurking hungrily in the quiet shadows beneath my bed.  I need to catch his eye, I need to get him to come out and talk to me.  He is mad though because I always banish him to that small corner at the foot of my bed.  I also never try to feed him.  

So I call him, I tell him to come out.  Come out, come out wherever you are.  I flirt with him and tell him that I want him as a companion. I even tell him that he can come under the covers with me again.  I promise him that we will embrace and not let go.

He's fallen for it.  I who can't hear anything, can hear the dustbunnies dropping to the floor.  I hear the dust mites that he terrorizes every night scurrying away.  They are happy he is leaving.

He is here now, I don't need to keep up the farce of liking him.  But I find that I do like him.  We talk about me and he relates to my pain.  We keep talking and he tries to make me feel worse.  He is succeeding.  This goes on for a few weeks.  Finally he says the words I need to hear so that I can banish him back under the bed.  

"Its big its scary and it is coming whether you like it or not.  You are going to die and no one will remember you.  You are going to leave your children."

Well, I'm not leaving them today.

Now you miserable little prick, get back under that bed until I call you.  And don't think you can pounce on me out of nowhere.  I know where you reside and I'm keeping my eye on you.