Your Worst Enemy When Living Alone

Recently, my aunt, who lives 10 minutes away us, left for an indeterminate amount of time to visit my grandparents a few states away.

Of course, being a 20 year old, I pounced at the opportunity and moved in. I should start practicing for my future, anyways—I don’t want to be thrown into that wild world without some practice.

Anyways, that night, I realized something elemental: I was alone in a huge house. At night. I never noticed how large her house was until it grew that night; each room suddenly erupted with countless hiding spots for murderers and inbred swine.

After having been here a few nights, I’ve learned that your imagination isn’t the worst thing working against you when living alone. Your worst enemy when living alone is your memory.

That moment when you notice a light on or a basement door open and you can’t remember if you were the one who did it. THAT is a truly terrifying moment. It will stay on your mind until you either remember that you did it or created a fake memory to convince you otherwise.

Which is what I did today.

I passed by the walk-in closet in the master bedroom today and realized that the light was on.

Freezing, I turned and looked in the closet, as if the answer lay between the coat and the blazer.

Shaking my head, I just flipped the light switch off, which was thankfully outside the closet, and walked away perturbed.

Mom must’ve come back to check up on me, and when she didn’t find me, she looked in the closet and forgot to turn off the lights. 

The switch must’ve been in the halfway position and suddenly chose a side.

Those weren’t even some of the worst ones.

I must’ve accidentally hit it with my elbow or something when walking by earlier. Yeah, that’s sounds about right.

My cat must’ve jumped down from that 10-foot shelf and bumped it on the way down.

30 minutes later, I still couldn’t shake the confusion off, which was made worse by the pounding at the door. It was the neighboring children, which may or may not have been scarier than anything I imagined.

Only until I remembered that my brother had been here earlier looking for some clothes in that exact closet, did I breathe a sigh of relief.

Until I saw the open garage door that I remembered closing.

I probably shouldn’t have searched “living alone scary” in Google images after sunset…