A Day in the Life...

Oh no.  The dreaded Monday.  The day of reckoning.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Do I set foot out of the house?  I mean this literally.  Do I dare open the door?  I mean this literally, also.  Do I take the short trip down the drive to fetch the mail?  Yes, literally.   And most of all, can I make it to the store?  You may think that I am insane, but you see, these seemingly mundane tasks are monumental to me.  Agoraphobia rules my world.  What is agoraphobia you ask?  According to "Merriam-Webster",  it is 'the abnormal fear of being in a helpless, embarrassing or inescapable situation characterized esp. by avoidance of open or public places.'  Such a nice, neat little definition.  However, it does not do it justice.  'Avoidance', 'abnormal'...excellent terms.  But, truly...'abnormal fear', NO, NO, NO.  Come on people.  GET REAL!!  Let us go with PARALYZING FEAR.   Or SUFFOCATING FEAR.  And the 'situation' would be avoiding the PRISON of the outside world.  Because once the door is opened,  the prison engulfs you and you are trapped forever in a maze filled with obstacles that will not let you go forward.  A maze filled with monsters lurking around every corner, ready to attack you and take you their prisoner for life.   'Open or public places', there is nothing 'open' about them in my eyes.  They are traps or cells.  They are bounded spaces.  There is no exit.   No, I am not schizophrenic.  No, once again, I am not CRAZY.  No, this is not your run of the mill paranoia.  THIS IS A GENERALIZED FEAR.  This is a day in my life...or more accurately stated, this is just the first few minutes of my day.  The 'inescapable situation'...well, that would be my past.  It is NEVER far behind me.  Believe me when I say I have tried to forget, to put it all behind me.  It just will not go away.  How could it?  It was my life.  I lived through it and all the memories are etched in my brain.  They have carved a path deeper than the Grand Canyon.  What would it take to fill the Grand Canyon?  My answer...either a miracle or a monumental disaster.  So, here I am, biding time, waiting for one of the inevitable to free me from this prison called life.