Baby Steps

I've hinted at this before, but when I was younger, I was all sorts of crazy. I had enough anxiety and body image issues to make the poor, short, chubby girls at modeling camp seem calm and at ease.

I won't get into it too much, except to say that I used to have trouble sleeping on the first floor of any dwelling because I thought a murderer would come get me. I'd spend late nights tossing with the TV on at my aunt's house thinking about someone slipping through the woods and into my room to stab me while the 4 a.m. repeat of Oprah ran in the background. (I thought keeping the TV on might protect me.)

But these days, I'm a lot calmer and more well-adjusted. I even live on the first floor of my condo building--something I swore I'd never do. But love makes you do crazy things--Wes wanted to live on the first floor to make load in/out easier.

And, despite the fact that I've been riding it almost every day since January, it only recently occurred to me that it would be really easy for a car driving on the GW Parkway to jump the curb and smash right into me while biking or running on the Mt. Vernon trail. Seriously, people (myself included) drive like maniacs on that road, and in a lot of places, the trail runs right alongside it. I'd always thought about how my bike could slide out from under me and directly into traffic at this one part, but my preoccupation with cars coming to get me is completely new--eight months after I started traveling on it. I take that as a sign of progress.

I also now willingly publish details about my life on the internet, known province of stalkers, rapists and murderers. Tomorrow, look for directions to my house and a description of my daily routines and habits.