Break In

It’s now been about 7 months since I experienced probably the scariest moment of my life. But, hey, look, now I’m writing about it, so I am in a very good place! God has taught me so many lessons over these 7 months as a result:

Two weeks before school started this past August, I was at my house alone in Athens working for the weekend. It was a Saturday night, and around 2:00am I awoke to the huge bang and shattering of the windows. I awoke immediately terrified that my worst nightmare was coming true. But before I jumped to conclusions, I tried to rationalize what I just heard. Was it lightning striking the house? No, my fan was still running so the power was still on. Then under my bedroom door I saw a light go on near the kitchen. I panicked. It was my worst nightmare. There was absolutely no other reasonable explanation. I lay paralyzed in my bed not knowing what to do. Probably the worst paralyzing fear had come over me. I continued to lay unable to move until I heard footsteps come down the short hallway between the two bedrooms on the bottom floor. I immediately knew I had to say something, “Hello?” I then heard some whispers and two sets of feet bolt out of my house.  I became outraged in anger, still overwhelmed with fear. I got out of my bed and began to yell with fear in my voice, “Get out of my house, get out of my house! I am armed and the police are in their way.” That last sentence may or may have not been true. I grabbed my phone and ran in my closet, called the police and stayed on the phone with the operator until they arrived.

I was so very fortunate that night because that was all that happened. Our front door was kicked in by two punks, and our 42” TV was stolen. It could have been 1000x worse, but I try not to imagine what “could have” happened. I know God was looking out for me, but it was still very hard understanding why he let this happen to me.

The immediate weeks to follow, I learned was how important friendships are. I am so fortunate to have such loving and awesome friends here in Athens. From being able to wake my neighbor at 2:45am who then let me sit in her bed, still trembling in fear, while I waited for my parents to come. “You are handling this so well right now” she told me. I didn't, and still don’t believe that statement is true. Ant then to having friends live at my house the following week with me until my roommates came back because I refused to go back there by myself. My gosh, God has blessed me! And what’s even more awesome to know, I know there are several others who I could have called on that night who would have woken up or dropped anything to come help me.

A second lesson was the lesson of security. Physically and emotionally. I never leave my house door unlocked at night, especially when I’m there by myself.  The door was locked that night, my car out front. There was nothing more I could have done except leave the porch light on. But since the “incident” we call it, our house has become almost a fortress with added security. So don’t try breaking in. But this “incident” will always be with me, and wherever I am in the future, I will always have something to remind me to be smart about security. And maybe God gave me this experience to teach me something about emotional security, I don’t know. But I do know as a result, if this were to happen again, I like to think I wouldn’t feel as nervous or uneasy. To be honest, I’d probably be straight up pissed. I don't think I was someone who was emotionally insecure before this happened, but I do think I have become more resilient as a result, which brings me to my next point.

The following weeks and probably couple months, I was still so uneasy, at night especially. I didn't want to really talk about the “incident”. But I knew if my psychological state didn’t get better, I was going to have to. I seriously considered going to talk to a counselor. I considered to mostly just talk about coping mechanisms so that it would never really become an issue, especially going into my hardest semester yet at school. I think after having one of my roommates sleep in my bed one or two nights, she was about to sign me up. Fortunately though, I snapped out of it and was able to move on with my semester starting and now, I can just about laugh about it.  That said, I would have had no shame in going to talk to someone about it though. And if it ever does begin to bother me psychologically, I will march my butt on over to a professional without hesitation.

Like I said earlier, I am so grateful I am now in a place where I can write and laugh about this. I was able to for a little bit after, I just didn't like to for too long. One time, maybe a week or two after, one of my friends came in and looked at the TV we moved down from one of my roommate’s rooms and said with all seriousness, “Did your TV get smaller?” I looked at him dumbfounded because I had told him about the “incident” just shortly before, but also how I didn’t really want to talk about it. Our other friend looked at him with the same dumbfounded expression that was on my face. I love to laugh about this now, especially when he comes over and I get to make fun of him for making me feel bad, hehe.