Just Guyton

I’ve had a lot of fears in my life.

Some of them make perfect sense. Some of them probably make absolutely no sense to anyone but me. And some of them can be traced directly back to movies, childhood experiences, and apparently a few questionable decisions made by the adults and children around me.

Let’s start with movies.

I saw my first horror movie when I was three years old.

Three.

I watched David Cronenberg’s The Brood with my dad, which I’m pretty sure would not appear on anybody’s list of recommended movies for preschoolers.

Thanks, Dad. Love you. 😂❤️

That movie scared the ever-loving daylight out of me and left me with a fear of little people that, if I’m being completely truthful, I still haven’t entirely gotten over.

Which is a little ironic considering I’m 4’11”.

Life has a sense of humor.

Then there was Stephen King’s It.

Tim Curry was absolutely fascinating as Pennywise. He was also terrifying, and that movie made me deathly afraid of clowns.

That fear actually did go away, although it took me until later in life to figure out how to make it happen.

I learned to look at Pennywise and think of Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

That was it.

My brain apparently went, “Oh. It’s just Tim Curry.”

Fear unlocked. 😂

Now I’ve seen all the It movies, and I even watched Welcome to Derry, which is pretty great.

Funny how the mind works.

But not all of my fears came from movies.

When I was about seven years old, I was almost kidnapped by a man in a white van.

He was looking for his dog.

Yes, he had a picture of the dog.

And yes, I almost got into that van.

I’m almost 50 years old now, and I still think white vans are creepy.

Some fears don’t come from imagination. Sometimes something happens to you, and your brain files it away under WE ARE NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN.

Around that same age, I had a friend named Perry.

Perry had red hair and freckles, so I guess you could say he was a little ginger kid. We used to climb trees together, and back then I was fearless.

One day Perry dared me to climb all the way to the top of a tree.

So naturally, I did.

I remember reaching the top and feeling ten feet tall. I was on top of the world. I looked down at Perry, and he looked like a tiny little ant standing below me.

And then I came tumbling down like Yertle the Turtle.

If you don’t know who Yertle the Turtle is, go read Yertle the Turtle. We’ll wait.

On the way down, a branch caught me right in the throat before I finally smacked into the ground.

I couldn’t move.

Perry ran to get his mother.

I almost died that day, and my little redheaded, freckle-faced friend helped save my life.

That was also the last time I ever saw Perry.

His family moved away. I’m pretty sure his parents were military, and when you grow up in a military town, you learn pretty early that sometimes friends are only yours for a little while. People were always coming and going.

But you remember some of them forever.

And then there was Laura.

Laura was also supposed to be my friend.

When I was about eight, Laura had this enormous mirror on her bathroom door. I swear the thing felt about twelve feet tall, and it had a crack running from the top all the way to the bottom.

Naturally, I asked what happened to it.

Laura told me Bloody Mary did it.

Then she pushed me into the bathroom, held the door shut and told me I couldn’t come out until I summoned Bloody Mary.

According to Laura, I had to stand there in the dark, spin around three times, say “Bloody Mary” into the mirror three times and wait for her to appear.

And if Bloody Mary didn’t attack me, Laura would let me out.

I was eight.

So I did it.

And on the third time, Laura started banging on the bathroom door.

It scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

Looking back, I eventually realized something else about Laura.

She really wasn’t my friend.

She was always doing things like that because she knew she could scare me. I was an easy target, and my fear was entertaining to her.

Maybe that’s why I remember Perry and Laura so differently.

One childhood friend saw me lying helpless on the ground and ran to get someone who could save me.

Another saw that I was afraid and used it against me.

Funny the things childhood teaches you about friendship before you’re old enough to understand the lesson.

And for the record, I still don’t like mirrors.

It isn’t because I think I’m ugly. It isn’t because I’m uncomfortable looking at myself.

Mirrors just bother me.

Part of that undoubtedly goes back to being eight years old, trapped in that dark bathroom staring into a giant cracked mirror and waiting for Bloody Mary to come get me.

But there’s another part of it too.

There is a part of me that believes mirrors could be portals to places I want absolutely no part of—to other realms, other versions of ourselves, other things that belong wherever they already are.

You don’t have to believe that.

You can have a house full of mirrors if you want to.

That’s between you and your mirrors.

But I’m not giving some alternate-realm version of Guyton an easy escape route into this existence.

She can stay right where she is.

My house will remain comfortably mirror-free. 😂

Maybe that’s the strange thing about fear.

Some fears are given to us by movies.

Some come from things that actually happened.

Some are planted by people who thought frightening us was funny.

Some disappear when we grow older and learn how to look at them differently.

And some stay with us.

Maybe being fearless isn’t really the goal.

Because that little girl who climbed to the top of that tree thought she was fearless.

Right up until she fell.

Maybe growing up is learning which fears are protecting us, which ones we can finally let go of, and which ones we’re perfectly content to live with.

As for me?

I can watch Pennywise now.

I can laugh about Yertle the Turtle.

I can remember Perry with gratitude.

I can recognize that Laura was never really my friend.

But if a white van full of little people pulls up beside me while I’m standing in front of a giant cracked mirror?

Nope.

Absolutely not.

I’ve seen enough movies to know exactly how that story ends. 😂

—Guyton