When I think back to my childhood and the fears that I have, I can think of one that I have carried into adulthood. Here's how it would go down...
I'd wake up and leave my bedroom, and I would all of a sudden realize that my dad had left for work.
Cue the tears!!
You can bet that if my dad had a cell phone - I would have called him. I would be so upset that I didn't get to say goodbye to him and get a hug and a kiss.
Funny thing is...I still do that. Maybe not to the extent that I did when I was a child, but the feelings are still there. It's pretty rare that I'm still sleeping when Abe leaves for work. When it does happen though, he doesn't wake me up because he knows I rarely get to sleep in. As much as I appreciate that - I wish he would. I wake up, realize he isn't there, and then I get upset.
He thinks I'm silly for it, but I'm the type that always imagines the worst. If Abe isn't home within 30 minutes of work being over, all kinds of things run through my head. I'd say that intensifies when he has left and I didn't say good bye. I imagine him getting into a horrible car accident and just thinking about how I didn't get to say goodbye and then I start processing our last conversation and hoping it was a good one.
Fear of loss is what you would call it, I guess. I lost my sister in 2004 and since then I've always been sure to say I love you when someone leaves, since you don't know if you will see them again. That wasn't the case when I was a child though. I hadn't lost anyone yet - anyone really close to me, anyway. So, there wasn't really anything that happened to instill that fear in me. I guess I was just born with it. Here I am, 26 years old, and I still feel the same way.
Hopefully that is something that will change since I always feel so silly - but I'm not counting on it.
*This post was written for Mama Kat's Writing Workshop.*
Out of the prompts, I chose:
1.) Childhood fears you've taken into your adult life.
That is so true! My husband and I always say "I love you" before we leave or if we are on the phone we say it before we hang up. JUST IN CASE. I haven't lost a sibling or anything, and yet I still feel that way too. You aren't alone!
ReplyDeleteI can't sleep through my husband leaving in the morning, either.
ReplyDeleteActually, when we are on the phone, I can not STAND IT if he hangs up without saying "bye". If it happens, I will call him back just to hear him say "bye" to me. :)
Great post. Coming over from Mama Kat's Writing Workshop.
www.roubinek.net
This reminds me of my 2-1/2 year old daughter. Every Mon-Fri morning when I go into her room, her first question is "Daddy at work?". On weekends he gets her up and she yells "it's the weekend!" So cute.
ReplyDeleteVisiting you from MamaKat's workshop today!
Aww.. I'm kinda like that too, though maybe to a slightly lesser degree. But my husband has learned that he is to wake me up to say goodbye.. but I find it easy usually to fall back asleep (once the door is locked and the alarm is on, lol).
ReplyDeletestopped in from Mama Kat's.
I don't really want my husband, or anyone else, to wake me up to say goodbye BUT ... I worry too if people are not where they should be when they should be there! And since they all carry cell phones ... how hard would it be to call and warn me that you're late so I won't panic!
ReplyDelete