Weekend sleepovers with my cousins were fun and hilariously scary when the lights went out and the television screen brought forth Count Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and towering Frankenstein.
Four or five of us laid like arrows with our inquisitive little heads propped up on pillows, sheets and blankets pulled up to our chins, eyes wide as saucers; watching the works of Stoker, Siodmak, Putnam, and Shelley drift across the screen into our minds and out into the dark shadowy bedroom. We loved every minute of toe touching, screams, shrieks, and covers being pulled away from body parts monsters might devour.
The Mummy was my favorite. He is wrapped up, concealed and hard to judge except for those eyes that followed me everywhere. His dragging leg and swinging arm terrified me and my cousins always made me giggle with fear when mimicking this childish fear. Sinister to the bone; Count Dracula killed for vanity, self-preservation, and cared nothing about how his deprivation destroyed his victims. On the other hand; The Mummy died and was resurrected for love.
In nineteen seventy-three, at age twenty-one, I began an affair with a tall, dark, handsome, charismatic monster nicknamed Jaivo. It took some doing; but I even married my monster, thinking a metamorphosis would change him into the ideal husband, and we would live happily ever after. I had unknowingly participated in creating a living nightmare that would last five years.
Most young eager to please women never think of the consequences underlying the relationships they find themselves in. Yes, we do “find ourselves” in these situational relationships. It may seem as if this state of being happened over night, but once we retrace our prints, and puzzle all the pieces together; we find ourselves off course, disoriented, and on someone else’s path. Most of us “wake up”, get out, and move on.
Women are not prepared to do battle with monsters, so it is best to stay away from their draining clutches. We keep thinking we can fix things, change him, and make the world evolve around what we want and how we think it should be. The truth of the matter is…it doesn’t work like that. Most monsters have an ulterior motive, just like we do, but theirs is self-promoting at your expense. It takes two to tango and it also takes prying, listening more than talking, and a whole lot of observation to get to the bone. See the monster for who they are, not what you wish them to be.
The world is fierce and there is some truth in “only the strong survive”. That strength isn’t physical. It’s highly spiritual and mental. You have to think like a monster to beat the monster and escape.
Young, dumb, free spirited and far away from the sheltered life style I was raised in; I was ripe and waiting to be plucked. When I look back on that period, my nightmare, I got off easy compared to some girls wading in unfamiliar territory.
The world has changed and in many ways; not for the good of those looking for hope of a better life. The journey is never easy, no matter what you might think. It’s full of potholes, miscues, detours, misleading signs, con artist, road rage, and monsters waiting for their next plaything.
Human trafficking, all sexual violence, pregnancy pacts, drug addiction, murder, and a plethora of global ills plague everyone. No one is immune, everyone should be on high alert, and we should all share our stories and knowledge of what can happen when you walk around like “Alice in Wonderland” instead of being “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.
There’s a lot I didn’t know when I met my monster, and perhaps that chapter in my life has contributed to who I am today. Rarely does a day go by that I am not staring into space saying to myself, “What next”. The evil man does to man and the sinister character women possess leaves me wishing for the good old days when most people kept their meanness contained. Now, we hare privy to it at every level: television, radio, on the jogging trail, in line at the local supermarket, and of course right next door. There is something amiss; something we should try with every ounce of what is good about us to take back from the monster within us.
I’m fifty-nine years young and to this day Mom has never shared any of her life stories with her daughters. When asked what it was like to grow up in segregated South Carolina she says, “I don’t want to talk about that.” If asked about her childhood and what grandma and grandpa were like; we get the same response or are totally ignored.
In the movies; women sit on the front porch telling other women in the family or in their circle how hard or easy life has been for them. What they or the family went through , and how they overcame the vicissitudes of living, can be used like a salve to cover our own failings, regrets, and rescues from monsters we accidently run across. Maybe that’s just in the movies, because most women and men I communicate with tell of the same silence, the same mysteries never shared. I am somewhat old fashion and think each generation should be told those deep dark secrets that could possibly keep new generations out of harm’s way, away from human predators.
Never one to pretend; I have always listened, and been more of an observer grounded in spiritual protection I never knew I had until the morning I woke up from my horrible nightmare. That was the morning God spoke to me and said pack your things while the monster is away. I did, and by eight o’clock that night I was nailing pictures up on the walls of my new apartment. I never looked back.
bevsangle 