iPhone

I live on the brink of panic. I hate it. I do things to protect myself like not watch the news or stay away from certain forms of entertainment, but I have to live, I have to exist in this world and this world makes me panic. There are reasons for it. I’ve been mugged at gunpoint and because of it, I know what I’m made of. Years later I saw the man who was to become my husband get beat up after he helped a woman that was getting mugged because it appears that no good deed goes unpunished.

Even as I write this I feel my chest tighten with a surge of adrenaline spiked with fear; it creeps up from my chest to the back of my throat where I can taste it and it makes me choke.

Last night, I saw the news, not all of it, but something that isn’t even that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, BUT now I feel afraid. I want to hide.

So what was the story that set me off? It’s embarrassing. In San Francisco people with iPhones are getting jacked for their phones. People on the street or public transit talking, texting, or doing whatever on their iPhones are having them stolen. I know this sounds like such an inconsequential thing, but I already have no sense of safety.

Today, I left the house and I just wanted to cry because now in addition to all my other fears I was afraid to use my friggin’ phone to call my husband or to take a picture of my daughter at the park.

I’m tired of being afraid. I feel like I’ve made so much progress, there was a time when I could not be outside without being terrified. I don’t feel that way anymore, but every once in awhile something triggers this terror that’s always underneath the surface, that has become so much a part of who I am that I don’t remember what it was like to be me without it; it’s like the Loch Ness monster of me.

I don’t want to be afraid to use my phone. I’m so angry that someone stole my sense of safety. I’m tired of telling myself to breath, I’m tired of looking for plans of escape. I just want to take my daughter to the park and take a picture of her with my damn phone and send it to my husband because I am so friggin’ proud that she is going down the big curly slide all by herself, but some stupid son of a b@tch infected me with this horrid sense of pending danger and then these other bastards come along and reinforce the fact that I am not ever safe!

Having a hard time leaving a comment? Email me.

{ 60 comments }