at home: in my closet

I used to believe…

when i was in grade 1 or 2, we were shown this video to make us not afriad of monsters in the closet. it was about this kid who indeed had a monster in his closet, eyes looking when his mom had his back turned, funny noises, the whole bit.
anyway, it all turned out that the monster just wanted a friend becuase he was scared of th edark too, or somethng akin to it.

i am 18. to this day, i have never been able to sleep with a closet door open. thanks a lot, public school system.

i used to believe our house had secret passages all through it (even though it was a pretty small one-story house). i thought i could use them if i could only figure out how to get into them. i thought the key was a framed panel on the back wall of my closet, but i couldn't figure out how to make it open.

(i've since learned that had to be an opening for dealing with the piping for the bathroom - good i didn't get in.)

I used to believe…

As a child, i must have been around 6, i dreamt that i had gone through my wardrobe, (closset type thing for you yanks) and ended up at my grandad's house in his garden, and was meeting all my dead relatives ide never meet. For a few years after i used to constantly open and shut the wardrobe door to try and get get through, as i was sure it wasnt a dream. I only stopped after the window cleaner scared me to hell an back when i turned around to see him starring at me.

i had finally gotten my own bedroom, had wrested my independence from my horridly tormenting older sister only to have her ruin it for the next few years of my childhood. it went like this:

there were giant sycamore trees outside my bedroom window that, combined with the moonlight, made the exact same errie image on my bedroom wall every night. it shone next to my closet and, eventually, i decided it had the appearance of a man. my sister confirmed the fact. she told me that it was really the ghost of the man who had hung himself in my closet years before we moved into the house. to prove her story she showed me a picture of him from a book of ghost stories. its still errie to me today to think of how much this random picture looked like my "ghost"

I used to think there were skeletons in my closet. But these weren't normal skeletons. These were screaming, sword weilding 'Jason and the Argonaughts' style skeletons.

i used to believe that my toys had a tunnel in my closet that led to their secret kingdom where they would escape to at night(while i was sleeping). there they would lead their own private lives, and return via the closet before i woke up.

I used to believe…

My best friend in elementary school told me that if you put pussy willows catkins (yes, that is what they're called!) in your closet, they'd turn into kittens overnight. Hense, we stripped the neighbor's bushes (a subject of great concern at the next coffee klatsch), made little nests on the floors of our closest out of tissues, and waited. And waited. And waited...

I had the usual fears of things attacking me at night and the compulsion to be completely covered with blankets with no body part hanging off the bed. However, my older brother must have tortured me with sci-fi movies because all of the monsters were from there. I had a slat-type closet door and I was convinced I could see the glowing eyes of the jawas from 'Star Wars' peeping out from the cracks in the slats, ready to carry me off to their freaky sand lair. The absolute worst was Gollum from the 'Lord of the Rings' animated movie. The song about the 9 fingers and the ring of DOOOOOM stuck with me. I was convinced Gollum was under the bed waiting to bite my finger off to the tune of the '9 fingers' song - I could hear him muttering about precious. I swear!

I used to believe…

When I was really little I would sometimes sleep in my parents room because of my asthma. During the night, I could swear I heard a man singing and playing the guitar in the closet! My parents were both sleeping, and I so scared I just prentended to be asleep so he wouldn't know I heard him. For awhile I believed a man was secretly living in the closet.

I used to believe that if I sat in my wardrobe for long enough that I would end up going through it into a magical land - similar to that of Narnia, and at one point I believed that you actually could go there. Suffice to say that after spending mnay hours in my wardrobe being looked for I never actually got there.

I used to believe…

As A Child: I used to believe a witch lived in my bedroom closet (and that she just might have been AniFrid Lynstadt from ABBA the pop group, too) and it was cause she moved out of our pantry closet is why she was now in my bedroom closet!

i used to believe that if you slept with the closet door open that someone could jump out and kill you at any point during the night. to this day i sleep with the closet door closed.

I used to believe that at night closet monsters would stand around in the closet wearing my clothes, waiting for me to fall asleep so they could come out. I always had to have the closet door closed.

I used to believe that there were hundreds of mechanical chickens hiding in my wardrobe, when the wind made the door bump, I was so sure it was the chicken army trying to escape. I'm not sure what an army of mechanical chickens would actully do, but believe me, it was scary!

I used to believe…

My mother had to check under my bed with a brush to make sure that there were no lions hiding there. When in bed the door of the wardrobe had to be open so that it's mirror, which was on the outside, would not be facing me - I was afraid of something jumoping out of it when the light went off.

I used to believe that monsters lived in the closet and that arms of some sort would grab me from under the bed if I got up without looking. I eventually convinced my parents to buy me a bed with a pedestal so that there was NO underneath for the arms to hide!

I used to believe…

The inside of my bedroom closet was covered with wallpaper that had rows of tiny geometric designs. I was convinced these markings were Egyptian hieroglyphics and when I deciphered them I would become rich and famous.

I always believed that there was a pirate in my closet. He wasn't a bad pirate, he protected me every night from any of the monsters that might come get me. However, this protection only worked if i went and stood outside the closet and said goodnight to him. I remember some nights where i forgot to say goodnight, and id wake up in the middle of the night, and walk over to the closet and say good night, to make sure i was getting my much needed protection!