"Make way for the simple hours, no finding the time its ours; a fate or it's a desire, I know"
When I was at university, I thought I was invincible. Obviously, that wasn't really the case since I was ill 3/4th of the time I was there and spent numerous days in bed recovering from my hangovers. But nonetheless, I was still invincible. No one could stop me, get in my way or prevent me from doing anything that I wanted. I'm not sure where this unknown power came from, but alas, there it was.
It's so weird to think about my time at uni, now that I'm back at home and have had time to sort through all of my leftover emotions and memories. I'm not sure if anyone felt the same super powers that I did, but I never felt that I wasn't safe, and I certainly never thought anything bad could happen. University was shrouded in this invisible safety bubble that kept us all shielded from the outside dangers and I never worried that I'd ever fall victim to any kind of horrible misfortune.
Since I've come back home, however, I am now acutely aware of every single danger that surrounds not only me, but also Momma and Mel. Perhaps it's having too much time on my hands to sit and think about all of the different things that could happen, but I'm not sure that's it; I had loads of time to sit around at uni and I never thought about the different bad things that could happen then. It's only now I realize how lucky I was nothing bad happened, and how I should probably be a lot more careful in the future.
But it's this new worry, this new stress, this new over protective feeling I have over Momma and Mel now that sometimes can keep me awake at night. Not long after I got back home, I either developed, or had reawaken this feeling to make sure that they were both taken care of at all times. Part of me wanted to keep them at the house at all times so I could keep an eye on them and make sure that they were okay; and every time they stepped outside to go to work, I was so sure that they were going to get in some kind of horrific car accident and I'd get a phone call to come down to the hospital.
It's these thoughts that constantly swirl around in my head, and I think to myself, if I just keep thinking about it, then nothing bad will happen. It's always when you're not thinking about it, when you least expect something, is when all of the bad things imaginable happen. So I keep torturing myself and thinking of every worst case scenario, to make sure that that particular day isn't the day I dread the most.
I'm more worried about Mel, though, and am always making sure that she's taken care of. After I left, I didn't realize how much of an impact it would have on her. I was her best friend and we did everything together, but after I was gone, she was bound to the house and has since developed her own group of "work friends" that I despise and am positive are getting her into hard drugs (even though Mel is the complete opposite of me as far as rebellion goes and can barely stomach a Smirnoff Ice, let alone do a line of coke). I've never met her friends, but I don't trust them. The Big Sister Instinct comes out, and whenever she leaves the house to go hang out with them, I'm glued to the house phone in case she calls needing me to come pick her up from a house party gone wrong, and give her a ride back home.
Just a couple of weeks ago she went out to a club in DC with one of her work friends that I hate the most, and I couldn't sleep properly. I imagined her being peer pressured into drinking until she couldn't control herself and then taken advantage of by some strange man with greasy hair and a dodgy mustache. I instinctively woke up at five o'clock to make sure she was back home, and there she was in bed, sound asleep. She appeared to be fine, and after my interrogation the next morning, I was positive nothing bad happened, and it was just a typical night out.
I hate that I constantly worry about them like this. I hate that I imagine horrible things happening and wondering if I'd be able to handle it. I hate that there's this guilt that has come out of nowhere and now I feel like I should make up for the time that I was away. I know they're both perfectly capable of taking care of themselves (obviously Momma has been taking care of herself for a very long time now), but now that I'm back I feel like I should be the one taking care of them. Maybe it's a way of me saying, "thanks" for letting me go off to find myself and supporting me for three years. Or maybe it's a way of me saying that I'm crazy and need to learn how to let them do their own things. Bad things happen, and me constantly stressing about it won't help. I know this, and yet I still worry, I still think about it, and I still believe that I'll be more prepared for when the inevitable happens.