Today was rainy again but then it slowly turned into a nice day. Now I am sitting here on my beanbag, windows open, with the night air blowing in. Somewhere way far off I can hear thunder every once in awhile and it reminds me of how much I hated storms as a kid.
The first time I ever went to Girl Scout camp. I was probably 7 or 8, and a girl in my troop fell and broke her ankle literally right as we were heading to tents for bed. Our leader had to rush the girl to the ER while my troop was left waiting in a shelter with another leader until they got back. As we are sitting there playing games, it begins to heat lightning and thunder. Exactly who knew this escaped me now, but I remember sitting and counting "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" between peals of thunder to see how far off the storm was. Later on that evening, we were asleep in our tents when it really starts to storm. I remember seeing lightning light up our tent and waking my leader up in tears. She unzipped her sleeping bag, I climbed in and that is where I spent the rest of the storm.
Just seeing the words Thunderstorm Warning on the news scared the crap out of me. I used to go to bed super early just so I could already be asleep whenever (if ever) it actually stormed on the night of a warning. I remember tearing through the hall to mom and dad's room and asking my mom "is that thunder or a plane?" I spent many stormy nights either on my parents' floor or my (younger) sister's room.
The worst were storms while we were at church camp. For two reasons: one being tin roofs made just rain incredibly loud, let alone thunder. The second was that I was a bossy kid and was usually the self-appointed leader of the group of girls in our cabin, and I hated to be so scared of storms in front of them.
I don't know when I stopped being so scared of storms? I like them during the day if I can just sit and read or nap, although they still aren't my favorite thing at night and neither is scary wind or lightning.
But tonight, there are no storms. Just crickets and occasional far off thunder, it's okay though because I'm feeling pretty brave:)
