Baby spiders.

First off, let me just say I found three baby spiders crawling around my scalp just now.

Did I freak out?

Is that even a question?

I don't know where they came from or what they were thinking trying to nest it up in my hair, but it's safe to say I'm not going to be sleeping very peacefully tonight. One of my biggest fears is that a bunch of tiny little spiders are going to be be born at the foot of my covers and overtake me--a rational thought if YOU have ever found more than one spider comfortably crawling near all the openings that lie within the facial area of the body.

I'm finding that lately my old life has been creeping up like those spiders. There are days I think I am rid of my past ways and then BAM! Baby spider attack. Except that the spiders are the lies of my old life and the attack is much more destructive than anything a harmless eight legged creature could attempt (unless it was a poison one).

I miss the comfort of my misery. It may sound strange, but depression was always a safety net for me. I knew who I was when I was depressed and what was expected of me. It felt more natural for me and right for me to think negatively of myself than to believe something that seemed less true than the labels of "depressed" and "anxious". The lack of responsibility for myself and others was easier than getting better, and far more consistent than anything else had been in my life. I was content. And I was miserable. I had a choice to choose then so I chose it--I had to get up and get out. My life depended on it.

So I did. And I am much, much happier now. Much more filled and fruitful. Anticipatory of the glory and hope that I already feel coursing through my bones. But I also feel pangs of fear. A little freaked out about letting that old me go. About letting certain relationships go, certain expectations for my life. Certain ways that I thought would always be, certain ways of relating to myself and others. I'm resisting the change but the hairs still stand up on my back when I think about the spiders.

And so I have to brush them off. Shake them violently off, if I have to. They want to remind me, to drag me down into the web of destructive thinking. But I am smarter than they, and more capable now. Stronger, and I know that while the feeling of them crawling up my spine is enough to throw me for a spin, I am bigger and more powerful to say the least.

So I kill them with great satisfaction. I still am wary of them, careful of their sneaky ways. But I know that as time goes on they will learn to keep their distance, and I will be better at avoiding their webs. There will be less of them, until there are no more of them that plague my life.

And the old me? Squashed.