Awakening

Needless to say, I haven't posted in a while. Also needless to say, I'm still alive, still out here on the left coast, and still busy enough that I don't usually have time to answer all my emails, let alone think "Hey! I should post to my blog." I won't bore you with apologies, but I will actually try and post more often without the guilt that kept me away so long. Somehow feeling guilty that I haven't posted in a while doesn't make me eager to start again. Stupid guilt.

Anyways, on to today's story, kids!

It begins last night at 3:45 am. Well, actually, it begins earlier than that, but 3:45 is when I finally blearily squinted at my alarm clock to see what time it was. I had been awake, mostly, for an hour already, unable to sleep because someone was pounding on one of my neighbours doors every ten minutes or so. I knew it wasn't my door, but it was close enough that my sleep befuddled brain had to figure that out every time I got woken up.

Eventually, I was awake enough to get scared. It's dark, it's quiet (except for the knocking, which was more like thudding), and my housemate isn't home for the weekend. Just me, the cats, and someone outside who doesn't live here and won't go away. I become prenaturally alert to every sound, and when a shadow passes close enough to my window for me to make a pretty good estimate of the guy's height and age I become seriously scared.

Then I hear one of my neighbours (one I don't know... although I don't know any of them really) open his door start to question the man in a loud, authoritative voice. What are you doing here? Who do you know here? Why were you trying to get in my window? Etc. The man mumbles answers in a language that's definately not English (and maybe not anything else either) and the police get called. There's another half hour of conversations both loud and quiet, I get to hear my neighbour explaining his experience and this man getting his rights read to him (for whatever that was worth, he didn't seem to understand what a 'lawyer' was) as he was arrested. My fear slowly ebbs and I get up, peer through the keyhole (seeing nothing), let a cat in via the back door, and make sure everything's locked. Strangely enough, the most reassuring thing was when the second cop, a woman, shows up and says "Good Morning" in a quietly cheery voice. At 4 in the morning to her partner, who sounds like he's arresting the man right outside my bedroom window.

Eventually, with the comfort of a purring cat next to me, I fall back to sleep and have weird dreams for a few hours before getting jolted awake at 7am by my alarm. Off to work, half-dead and feeling sheepish for being so scared. I should have said something long beforehand, or at least gotten up when the police came to tell them my version of the story. Anything other than cowering in my bed just because of some guy was outside. The guy was suspicious, certainly, but wasn't dangerous. If I had asked in a loud voice what the hell he was doing knocking on a door for an hour in the middle of the night I probably could have gotten much more sleep. He seemed to be saying he was trying to get a hold of a friend, and maybe he was. Or maybe he was a druggie. In any case, I could have done something myself rather than being a passive victim of my own fears.

In any case, I phoned the police today and told them what I heard, for what it's worth. The most disturbing part of all this is, in reality, the fact that now I think about it, I believe I've been woken up (and fallen immediately back asleep) by similar knocking a few times in the past few weeks. But in any case, if I'm going to be an actually independant person, I need to learn how to handle myself better when I have such a rude awakening. Because fear isn't worth it, and I don't want to let it get the better of me again.