Growing

I’m joining in on 5 Minute Friday at The Gypsy Mama today-- you write for 5 minutes and then post whatever comes out, no editing allowed. Today’s topic is Growing. I’m guessing that many people wrote about their kids, or maybe their spirituality. I don’t roll that way.


So, there’s a spider on the wall next to me. In my mind, he’s huge. Easily the size of my fist.

He’s getting bigger before my eyes, constantly growing. I feel like soon he’ll be able to cocoon me up in his web himself.

But it’s all about perspective. In reality, he might be the size of my pinkie finger nail. But because of my fear, he’s huge.

I can remember as a little girl, my father was trying to get me to kill a spider in the garage. “Just step on it,” he kept saying. But I was wearing sandals and no socks. In my memory, the spider was bigger than my foot. If I stepped on him, his hairy legs would be floundering outside the edges of soles.

I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. My father had to physically pick up my foot and place it on the spider, while I sobbed and screamed.

I was scarred for life. Or I was scared for life. Whatever.