{A personal post} Thoughts on Fear

When Dan & I were soon to be married in 2007, our house was broken into. A man entered through our back door (we may have left it unlocked but had a gated backyard) while we were still asleep during the wee hours of the morning. It was 6am and I was awaken by a sound in our house. The armoire door opened in our spare bedroom (a very distinct sound) and soon after I heard footsteps to our bedroom. I was wide awake at that point when the door to my bedroom opened and a man appeared in the frame. I yelled as loud as I could "Get the f*ck out of here", to which he replied "Oops, sorry." He was clearly not violent and was only after our stuff...thankfully. He walked away with my purse, wallet, camera, and a a ton of gift cards from our recent wedding shower. But that incident has wrecked me for over five years. There was a man in my room, uninvited, and a serious threat to my feeling of safety (it could have been so much worse...but thankfully was not). We moved from that house (which I loved) ultimately because I never felt safe again.

I thought leaving that house would cure me of my fear. It didn't. I recently had a conversation with my mother about that incident and she wondered if it had instilled a bit of fear in me. YES! I have traditionally been a bit of a fearless person...to a fault, especially to a mother. Fear has never ruled my decisions nor my existence. In fact, fear to me was only instilled when I watched horror movies...which I HATE!

Since that episode I have had both my house (another camera) & car stolen from again (and by the way, there were many other times prior to 2007). I regularly have dreams (um, nightmares) about my house being broken into, my car stolen, my computer, my camera, etc. It's horrible. Especially now that I'm capturing weddings for couples...it's my worst fear. I've been on a major rampage to backup all images to a million places in fear (an exaggeration but you get the point). I hate this feeling. Did I mention it's horrible? I realize the possessions are replaceable but my sense of security & safety is not.

Tonight the Long Beach police helicopter circled over my home for a good 30 minutes. It rattled my windows and my wine glasses hanging on a rack. I stepped into my backyard and chatted with my neighbor...what the heck is going on? He mentioned a block away there was a police standoff and weapons were drawn. WTF? I have a little girl and my job in life is to protect her. Once again, I hate this. Fear instilled again.

2012 has been a very difficult year for me. A wonderful year professionally. But a terrible one personally. Honestly fear is an emotion that I've only been crippled by recently. I hate it. I'm not sure how to overcome it. I would love to have a good nights sleep again...