Remember when you were a kid? Everything back then used to scare you, from the closet door creaking ever so slowly to remind you that there was a monster in the closet or something shifting under your bed constantly making you wonder if there was a monster lurking under there.

For me, when I was young, the one thing that would assure me at night was to keep my bedroom door wide open so when the monsters would come out to bother me in my sleep, I could sprint to my parents' room and tell them all about my experience, and sit there until they would give me some attention and eventually send me back into my room. That open door was somewhat of a reassurance, something I could tell myself before going to sleep in my bedroom that was full of monsters that I would always have this connection to the outside world where it was safe and past the threshold of this realm of "evil."

But something strange happened as I grew up, and I feel like it happens to a lot of people as they grow up. Those fears mutated and became something else entirely, and with it came this stark loss of innocence. A lot of people pride themselves with this fact that they have this sense of innocence that keeps them shielded from the horrors of the world or even keeps them shielded from the horrors of just growing up in general and accepting a wide array of responsibilities.

And what happened? That open door, that door that once symbolized the gateway to safety for me, slowly started getting smaller and smaller until it finally shut, closing me off from what I thought was safety, was protection from the land of monsters.

This change that people go through is interesting, it made me think that these fears mutate in such a way that things we assume are safe and will protect us so easily become things that we want nothing to do with. When I was young, it was bedtime at 8:30 and the lights would be out, I didn't have an iPod or a Macbook or anything, it was simple and ideal, a routine that would remain consistent for years until this innocence that we all hold so dear was lost.

Soon enough though, those monsters started to fade, and the place of tranquility, the place that I once thought would protect me from the monsters, was now something I wanted nothing to do with, because I was always on the internet until late hours of the night, or I wanted my sense of privacy that someone else in the house, whether it be a parent or a roommate could disrupt.

So what happened? It was simple, I had become the monster. When I was young, I thought the monsters would be kept at bay knowing that the door was open and that I had an open connection to the pure world. But now, just like them, I wanted to be in that isolation, to myself, because for all I knew, I had just become one of them.