Things that go bump in the night.

Tonight is one of those nights...a night where I can't seem to fall asleep and every little noise in my apartment is making my heart beat just a bit faster than normal. It is 3:17AM and I am wide awake. I can't explain why I occasionally get like this...sometimes once my head hits the pillow I'm out light a light.  But other times, such as tonight, it is just not happening.  It might have something to do with the fact that I had random and scary knocking and beating on my window at 9:30PM tonight. It might be that I took a nap this afternoon after school and probably slept a bit longer than I should have. Maybe it has to do with the start of the school year this week, and my mind is racing with things to plan, projects to implement. Or maybe, it's just one of those nights. A night when I'm hit with that feeling of being utterly alone at night, in an apartment in western Romania.

Now I'm not scared of the dark, and never really have been. (OK-I admit as a child...ok teenager....I ran like hell up the basement stairs once I turned the lights off..can you honestly say YOU didn't?!) But when I'm in this apartment at night, my eyes deceive me and that towel hanging on the door is just plain creepy.  The curtains seem to have shadows in human form.

I sleep with my bedroom door open so that I can hear if my gas meter goes off in the kitchen. (This has happened a few times and let me tell you just how disconcerting it is to wake up to your carbon monoxide meter going off...it ain't fun. Probably a malfunction, but still.) So in order to hear the alarm, the door stays open and my bed faces the door and sometimes, that just freaks me out too. Add that to the random water I hear trickling from the upper apartments and the rooster than randomly crows outside, and you have one scary setup for 3:00AM. And if the electricity goes out? Forget about it.

I realize, after reading this, that I probably sound like a 6 year old complaining about the Boogieman under her bed. I mean, I've been here over a year. I love my town, my apartment, neighbors and community. It is one of the safest places I've ever lived. (Anyone recall my stories from Guatemala? Gunshots, dead bodies, drug trafficking?) So WHY do I lay here utterly freaked out at times?

That is yet to be determined. In the meantime...I invite and any all visitors. That includes all of you in the states.

I hear the Boogieman goes down easier when there are at least two of us.