My Scariest Thing

Yesterday Isaac asked me what the scariest thing that happened to me when I was a kid was. Immediately the day came to mind and it's almost even scarier to me now, as an adult, when I can truly understand what the outcome *may* have been.

I was in middle school, 12 years old, and walking home after staying after for one reason or another. It was about a month or so after the Jacob Wetterling kidnapping (anyone from MN will know this story as it's quite infamous here) so around November. It was probably only 4:30-5:00 in the evening but dusk. We lived in a cul-de-sac across the street from my school, a very short walk. As I was crossing the street to head to my cul-de-sac, I noticed a running car with it's lights on about halfway up the block. I didn't think too much of it but it did catch my attention. After crossing the street, I glanced at the car again and saw that it was still pulled alongside the curb but slowly coming towards me. I picked up my pace and headed into my circle. We were the 2nd house in-not far too go. As I got to my driveway, I saw the car about come up to the enterance of the circle (it was still along the curb and going very slowly, maybe 5-10mph) and I hurriedly opened our back fence, closed it, then ran to the back door and inside. My parents and brother were gone at the time. I was scared but was trying to talk myself down, telling myself to stop being a baby and everything was fine. I walked into the kitchen and then heard a knock at our front door. I panicked for a second and just sat down against the wall in the kitchen, shaking. At the next knock, I grabbed the cordless phone and ran to my parents room, kept the lights off, and looked out the window. The car that followed me home was parked across circle and I could see someone sitting inside still. I was so scared and trying to figure out what to do. When your a kid, it's drilled in to you to only call 911 in an emergency and I was so big on following "the rules" that I didn't think this was one. I wanted to call the police but kept thinking that they'd be mad if I called and said my parents weren't home and someone was knocking on my door. So I called my friends mom who lived several blocks away instead and told her what was going on. During this time, which probably took about 3-5 minutes, there was no more knocking but the person still hadn't gone back to the car. After I got off the phone, finally I saw a man walk down our driveway and get into the car. He had on a stocking cap and a long trench/overcoat.

*You know, it seems silly, but I have to take a break in writing this. Russ came in as I was typing and I stopped and talked with him about it. I've told him this story before but we really went in depth this time and talked about what the innocent motives might have been and what both of us actually think could have happened had I answered the door. I'm quite shook up right now-heart racing, stomach churning, just feeling really anxious. It seems dumb since it happened almost 20 years ago and, obviously, I'm fine but really going into it and thinking what could have been is frightening. I do have a fairly strong reaction any time I let myself really think about this so I also believe it affected me more than I thought. So, for the sake of my upset tummy, I'm gonig to stop now and I'll finish the story tomorrow.