For as long as I can remember, I’ve been afraid of the dark. It never mattered if all I had to do was bring out the trash. My heart would rattle in my chest.

It doesn’t help that I’m completely directionally challenged. I’m not a very visual person, and to make it worse, I’m also incredibly oblivious to my surroundings.

The only two places where I’ve ever had a sense of orientation were Vienna and London during short vacations there. Why? I wish I knew. My friends were amazed when I kept telling them where to go and was actually correct.

Since the struggle with feeding the colonies (the owner of a local dealership is making a stink) and setting traps for Ember, I’ve been out more and more after dark. I even sat on the sidewalk in a cat bed for over an hour one night. Mind you, my kids were in the car close by, so I wasn’t completely alone.

I still want someone with me when I feed the colonies in the dark. And at the second colony I’m feeding, there’s a patch of woods right behind it where I have two plastic bins that I put food in so it stays dry when it rains.

I’m not going in there when it’s dark.

As my niece likes to say: Es gibt Grenzen, und das ist eine für mich.

There are limits, and that is one of mine.

So I’m feeding that colony during the day.

What I’ve also noticed is how much life still happens after it gets dark. I obviously knew that, but I haven’t seen it in a long time because I generally stay home once it gets dark. Not because of my fear, necessarily, but because being out in the dark overall isn’t that pleasant—my night vision has also taken a nosedive—and I just… don’t want to go places.

Unless we have something like a choir performance for my daughter or we go to the movies, I’m not out in the evening. I prefer to be home, away from people.

As such, constantly being out at night, being somewhat lost even on familiar routes because of my vision issues, obliviousness, and complete lack of orientation is… interesting.

That’s a German interesting, by the way. Not a good interesting. The kind of interesting that means, I have some thoughts about this, and none of them are positive.

But I’m still doing all of this. Not even with hatred in my heart.

I am tired, though.

But I’m no longer afraid of the dark.