That Feeling - Friday

You know that feeling you get that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your heart beat hard in your chest and causes you to look wildly around for danger? Most of us of us do. We call it the heebie-jeebies, chicken skin, jimjams, willies and a wide variety of creative names. It usually happens after we have watched a scary movie or are alone in a creepy place. Sometimes running into a certain type of person can bring it on. Normally it will pass almost as fast as it came on or at least that had been my experience. Until today.

Today started out for me like any other. I woke up after hitting the snooze button twice. Each time coming up with reasons to justify why sleeping just five more minutes was okay. Finally getting out of bed I walked groggily to the bathroom while carefully avoiding my happy and hyper dog running circles around my feet. As I got ready I complained to myself about not being able to carpool with Jay to work, thought about how tired I was from studying all night and I wished with all my heart it was actually Saturday and not Friday. After grabbing my purse, phone, checking for car keys and getting Puppie's attention I started walking down the hallway to the front door. That's when it started. That feeling. It started right at the back of my neck and went down through my spine. I felt like I was being watched even though I knew I was alone. My heart started racing right along with my mind. I glanced around the house just to make sure I was alone and walked very quickly to the front door overpowered by the need to get out of the house. Once outside I calmed down a bit, resumed walking at a normal pace and felt a slight relief. It was strange though because usually by this point other than the adrenaline everything returns to normal and I beat myself up mentally for being so silly and scaring myself. This time that didn't happen. That feeling was still there.

Driving to work like this was one of the more interesting things I have done. I kept looking over at other cars to make sure there were people in them, that they were not filled zombies and I would keep glancing at the sky for any anomalies  Of course none of the scary images I made up in my head ever became reality but the uneasiness stayed a constant the whole way. I am pretty good at creating things in my head that can scare me I blame this mostly on my weekly need to watch horror movies, my obsession with reading anything by Stephen King and the fact that I never grew out of my wild imagination. Even knowing all these quirks about myself didn't bring any relief but I was now just a few minutes away from work and the thought of being around a bunch of people I knew gave me some hope. As I got off the freeway at my exit I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A black shadow which was somewhat human formed right on the side of the off ramp. It appeared that it was about to jump into traffic right in front of me. I pushed down on my brakes and blinked in amazement that this was about to happen. In the split second that it takes to blink the dark shadow disappeared.  By this point I had enough of my mind playing dirty little tricks on me. I sat at the stop light catching my breath while wondering momentarily if I had gone crazy overnight. Finally I pulled myself together and told me in a very firm voice that I will not allow myself to play tricks on myself. Yeah that didn't sound crazy at all. Once the light finally turned green I made the remaining drive to work in a sort of forced peace. It felt really good when I pulled in the driveway and saw my co-workers cars and it felt even better when I saw Jay's car. Grabbing everything I needed for work I locked my car and started walking to the office. Half way to the front door a cold breeze shot up my spine and tussled my hair. I glanced around seeing no one which was a relief it was what I didn't see that scared the shit out of me. It was a beautiful sunny day with not a cloud in the sky a rarity here in Portland. The other rarity was not a tree rustled because there had not been a single breeze all morning. Just as I figured this out it took everything inside me not to bolt to the door and then a deep voice whispered something inaudible in my ear. I started running heals and all, there was nothing that could have stopped me after that. Only when I was safety inside the building staring at a rather concerned looking Diane did I collect myself, smiled a brief oh well look at her and made my way to my desk. Once in the comfort of my little corner of the marketing department I took a minute to bring myself back to reality by convincing myself for what seemed like the 100th time that day it was nothing but my mind playing tricks on me. Right then Jay popped around the coroner and seeing my husbands handsome face made everything seem a little safer. Even with the safety of my husband at my side, being in my little cube and surrounded by friendly co-workers it just wouldn't go away. That feeling.