That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
Do you remember lying in bed before you were a big girl, watching what had clearly been your dress draped over a chair mutating into a dark shape: a dark shape that twisted into a deformed body, with a face that you recognised from every bedtime story, with a hooked nose, and straining, staring open eyes... do you remember those hands; growing, stretching, reaching towards the bed where you lay paralysed with fear: and then... that noise, that wail, the scratch of nails on your window pane...
I’m looking at something perfectly mundane - this time it’s my end of year exams (and I’m a fresher, so they really are about as scary as yesterday’s clothes) – but in my head they are bigger and scarier, and the more I look at them the worse they get. In my head, they are not just some exams that I’m possibly not going to pass, but these exams that are jeopardising my whole university career, which of course is synonymous with the whole of my career EVER, which is the only way into my real life, and my independence; my ability to buy a house, have a successful relationship and a secure, satisfying family life.
Do you remember the two options you had before you were a big girl? You screwed your eyes tight shut, pressed your face into the pillow and pretended it wasn’t there. You spent the rest of the night trying to sleep, waking up every few seconds still too afraid to look up until it was morning. And by then you were so tired that everything that day was spoilt, and you went to bed the next night and it was still scary. That’s denial and most of us do it; we’re all frantically facebooking, tidying, and revision-timetable-ing, trying to pretend that the witch isn’t about to get us.
But do you remember the other choice? You jumped up and screamed, dived for the door and the light switch, raced for the stairs: and in that second it was over. Mummy was there and the light was on, and you could see that it was just yesterday’s clothes. And then you had a cuddle, and went to bed, and even if, when the light was off, the shadow of the fear was still there, you could see the folds of your dress in the witch’s hair and you knew it wasn’t real.
That’s what I finally managed to do this time. I put the light on and looked my monster in the eye. I did my revision and didn’t get to see my best friend for her birthday. But I did manage to take a weekend off a few days later, because staring into the evil eye of that exam, I knew that, even if it went badly, it wasn’t my whole future down the drain. It is only my first-year exam after all.
It is all very well lying drowning in your tears, saying to yourself that you aren’t afraid of the dark, but sometimes it really helps to turn the light on.
And then, you really can’t be scared of the dark.
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