Overactive imagination 101

Anyone who knows me knows that I should never watch scary movies. For example, during the sixth sense I had to leave the theatre due to an asthma attack. Also, during college some friends convinced me to watch The Ring. Now, I was living in a funeral-parlor-turned-apartment building at the time and I slept with the lights on for a week and turned the TV toward the wall. Still, I was sure the freaky kid was going to crawl with her disjointed limbs out of the screen and attack me in my sleep. Knowing this, I don't know why I thought it would be ok for me to watch Stir of Echoes last weekend. For anyone who hasn't seen this movie, it stars Kevin Bacon and is not really even that scary. I did not even watch the whole thing, but I am pretty sure they wind up finding the girl that haunts Kevin Bacon buried somewhere in his house in the end. Anyway, it was a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon, and Chris was at home so I figured I would be ok. WRONG. For the past week I have been replaying scenes in my head. At night, when I am up feeding Grady, I leave lights on that really don't need to be on and cling to my 6 week old like he is going to do something to protect me. I KNOW in my head that neither the girl from Stir of Echoes, nor the girl from The Ring, nor the freaky under-the-bed girl from the Sixth Sense is going to show up in my apartment, yet I keep peering into the dark. Now I have always been afraid of the dark and, at 24, I have my reasons why I am still afraid of the dark (and no, ghosts have nothing to do with it), but being afraid of the dark and having a very overactive imagination is a deadly combination. All I can hope is that is gives me some perspective and understanding in a few years when Grady starts to have bad dreams and wants to crawl into bed with us. As long as he doesn't invite the girl under the bed to come with him.