I had to experience something for the first time that I believed I had already experienced: fear of the unknown. Specifically, I am talking about walking down a dark road, with no street lights, tense and afraid that anything can happen to you. And for some reason that is one of the most calming feelings ever.
A little context here: I’m working at the mall and I have no car. I’m doing a closing shift at this store I’m working at and my ride is also working and gets off an hour later. I either have to wait an hour and a half at an empty mall, or take ten minutes and walk home. It took me a good 15 to 20-seconds to decide my course of action.
Now I have to say that I’m not particularly brave, nor am I particularly cowardly. I’m very average when it comes to my decisions based on potential bodily. Why am I talking about bodily harm as I’m only taking a six-minute walk down toward where I live? Because of an irrational fear of being stabbed.
More than likely, it’s from all the movies and television shows that I’ve watched where some random person comes up and stabs someone alone in a darkened alley, and although I wasn’t walking down a darkened alley, it was night time and there were literally no street lights around.
I’m not particularly scared of the night, not by a long shot. I have no fear of walking around at night with no lights, especially when my "Point A" is literally within view of my "Point B." That being said, there was something surreal about walking back to my apartment that night, where there is no one around for the eye can see; where the brightest lights are dim lamps from the park a couple of meters away; where the sound of your own foot steps are the only clear sounds you hear.
There’s a sort of calming feeling when you feel as though you’re alone in the dark. It’s not based out of a sense of peace though, but rather out of primal instinct, one where you fight off the urge to just run as fast as you can in any direction. By no means is it calming though; rather it’s exhilarating, kind of exciting if you will, where the idea of just existing excites every movement you make. It’s a peace that many of us today don’t really feel anymore, what with our busy schedules and loud lives.
Self-awareness isn’t exactly the most exciting or impressive thing to be, at all, but you sort of become self-aware when walking alone at night, with no one around. The way you walk and the way you breathe is something that fills your mind in such a short amount of time. It’s insane, and quite foolish how much you think that you’re breathing or walking strangely. Stranger than everyone else. And then you remember you’re alone at the moment, and nothing you do is strange to anyone. The experience is surreal.
As I neared my apartment building there was a guy walking towards me with a black jacket and for some reason, my mind instantly went to thinking he was going to stab me.
And that’s the story about how I half yelped at a man on the phone with his wife and almost peed myself walking alone at night for 10-minutes.
