It All Makes Sense Now

As I continue to navigate through some unexplained and scary memories, they are all are starting to make sense now.  The unexplained has now become the explained and the scariness is not as scary. 

I always had this feeling there was something or someone watching me but would always dismiss it to my imagination or just the fact that what I was experiencing was just not possible.  That was frustrating because I knew deep down that something happened but, because of my narrow thinking, I would dismiss it.  All that did was add to the "what if" anxiety.

Even as my family was going through the hell of our haunting, I was still trying to rationalize and debunk everything that was happening.  It took something targeted directly towards me for me to finally come around.  I wrote about that epiphany in "Can You Hear Me Now!".  My eyes are open now and explanations of things that happened throughout my life are making sense.  It's a good feeling to finally have some reconciliation of past experiences.  It gives me some closure.

I am finally able to close the books on one memory in particular.  It's one that I don't think I have ever shared with anyone.

I have family in Michigan and I went to visit them one Summer when I was a teenager.  Even though didn't visit my father's side of the family often, I still felt close to all of them.  To me it was a different world than what I was use to; different climate, different accents, and a different lifestyle.  I was also excited about the chance to escape the summertime heat of Texas.

My family there lives in and around a very small town that has a population of about 800. It's one of those quaint upper Midwest towns you see on the Hallmark channel.   Everyone knows everyone and everyone gets along.

My grandmother lived in a small two story house just off the main road through downtown.  I loved that house.  It just seemed to have the historic vibe to it and had a unique layout.  My grandmothers bedroom was down stairs and the two other rooms were upstairs.  The two upstairs rooms were separated by a door and you had to walk to through one to get to the other.  Like I said, a unique layout but also a somewhat inconvenient one.

Not only was the town old but, my grandmother's house was old too.  I don't quite know how old it was but it had that old time feel.  I guess something like that is a recipe for something and that's what happened.

I would sleep in the front upstairs bedroom as I felt uncomfortable in the back bedroom.  I would keep the door closed between the two rooms because of that uncomfortable feeling.  As I was starting to drift off to sleep one night, I remember hearing some shuffling downstairs.  I didn't think much of it, I figured it was just my grandmother.  I rolled over and fell asleep.  

I remember waking up in the middle of the night, the room was lite up from the light of the moon and my grandmothers dog had somehow found her way onto my bed.  I figured it was her that woke me up and I put her down on the floor but she jumped right back up.  Instead of fighting with her about her sleeping arrangements, I just let her lay at my feet.  I was starting to fall back to sleep when I hear something in the other bedroom.  It sounded like someone walking around but it stopped as I became more alert.  I chalked it up to the fact that my mind was starting to drift off and it was the beginning of a dream.

Then, out of nowhere, the door opened.  It was a loud squeaky door so it woke me up rather quickly.  Startled, I sat up and looked through the door to other room but saw nothing.  I figured I hadn't shut it well and it just opened because the house settled.  I got up, closed the door and I made sure it closed tightly. 

As the dog and I were getting comfortable, the door opened again.  I sat up and in the moonlight, I could see a figure of a man standing in the doorway.  He was huge and filled up the whole door frame. I sat there paralyzed.  The dog saw him too and began to growl.  Then the door closed and I could hear footsteps walking away from the door.

I was terrified.  I grabbed the dog, a blanket, and pillow and went downstairs.  I laid on the couch (the Davenport as my grandmother called it) but didn't sleep the rest of that night as my eyes stayed focused on the bottom of the stairs.

I slept on the couch every night afterwards as I just felt too scared to sleep upstairs.  I would only go upstairs during the day and always took the dog with me.

I never spoke to anyone about what happened, not even my grandmother, as I didn't want to relive what had happened.  I also didn't want  people to think that was crazy.

As I look back at this particular experience, it is still kind of unnerving.  I was in a different place that I wasn't entirely comfortable with yet and I had no point of reference for what had happened.

To this day, it is still one of the experiences from my past that still haunts me but at least I now understand why it may had happened...maybe