|
Copyrights reserved by the author. If in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' for details. No More Monsters By Donna Todd I was lying in a dark, quiet room, in the middle of my cozy bed, with the man I love, and I should have been sleeping peacefully without a care in the world. What caused me to lose a couple of hours of sleep? It would have to be my fear of failure, and the worry of looking stupid. No matter how I tried to ease my mind, I couldn't get a handle on it. Why was I so afraid of looking stupid? Because all of my life, I felt that I had been on the outside, that I had never fitted in; that everyone else had it all, and were all, and now, here I was, just me the little girl again, with the messed-up dysfunctional family. The family that never had a dad who provided for them, the family who should have been happy and cohesive, after all that they had been through together yet could never quite bond with each other. My pillow was bunched in between my arm and chest, the covers were loose from the foot of the bed, and my hair was standing up, from tossing and turning on my pillow throughout the night. The room was stuffy from the July heat even though the air conditioning was working away. The darkness swelled, seeming to swallow me whole. My husband was sleeping soundly without a care in the world. His eyes were not even moving under his lids, his breathing was deep and full. There were no wrinkles on his face and his arms were lying at his sides without fear. He sensed that I was troubled and again fretting and fighting to find sleep. He instinctively moved toward me. No matter how close my husband was to me, I felt all-alone. Just lying there I could see the test returned by my professor last week: the test that I was just sure I had conquered. I studied all week, practiced numerous equations, but that "D" kept flashing in my mind. What a failure! I felt compelled in my search for peace of mind, to get out of my bed and go to the kitchen table and go over all of the chapters again. The paper was calling to me but what good would going over it again do? In the moonlight I could see my book bag in the corner. I've used all the lead in several pencils, used every sheet of paper in my notebook practicing equation after equation, word-problem after word-problem and still couldn't seem to get a handle of the concepts. Just like in high school, every time I was sure of myself and felt that I was in control, surprise -- failure again. I watched as the other kids confidently answered questions correctly in class, listened as they bragged about not even studying for the exams. They walked out of class in control with passing grades. Am I really so stupid that I still can't, as an adult, master this? If I were to fail, I would be exactly what the others thought of me. No one else seemed to be out of control or panicked. I couldn't imagine them lying in their bed, tossing and turning, sweating and desperate. What if I didn't find success? My family was counting me. They were giving up having their mom at home to listen to stories about their daily experiences and giving them advice as how to get through their problems. Because of my going to college they wouldn't have dinner waiting for them when they came in, didn't have clean laundry, and good night kisses. They were enduring the moodiness of my stress. They were looking at me as an example. If I allow this to beat me, what would they get out of this? What would I do? Would I have to quit, never attempt stepping out of my comfort zone again? Would I always be labeled as a failure? What am I doing? Is there anything this important, to rob me of much needed rest? No, did it really matter? Not in the balance of things in my life, anyway. I have children who need me, people that expect me to be in control and handle their problems. It really was nothing, not worth laying in misery over, but I kept fighting it. Trying to make it go away and sit in the corner, where it belonged. How could I be this desperate? It was just another algebra test.
|