Barricaded beneath my bed, I listen with complete intent as my parents receive the News for the first time from Fox. I’ve had a wet cough for weeks and because of this, my family has basically authorized a citizen’s arrest, restricting me to nothing beyond my bedroom door. Weeks passed, where I was lucky if I got so much as a sip of Benadryl or box of Kleenex. But on this night however, I received both.

My mother left my room that night, leaving the door open ever so slightly. This was curious because every encounter prior was mapped out to the exact minute by my father (AKA the General). A man who lived by order, a man who couldn’t walk away unless certain he crossed every T and dotted every I, a man who insisted his 8 year old daughter refer to him as General and a man who reminded that daughter she was blessed to be enrolled in the prep school he insisted on paying for.

But on this night, the General left one T uncrossed. It was on purpose. The General and mother wanted me to notice, so I can hear what was happening without them having to say. Their plan worked. When I snuck out to listen, it became the defining moment that catapulted me from childhood into adulthood. A siren sounded on the TV, followed by the public service announcement by the President advising everyone to stay indoors.

“This is not a drill. Board up your houses. This Country is no longer safe through regular quarantine protocols. Again, this is not a drill.”

The warning was too late. The clawing and screams at our front door had already begun. I looked at my parents, both stone cold and completely composed with no reaction. About 20 seconds later the General stood up from the recliner with a shot gun that he loaded with just one hand and said, so matter of factly, “everyone get in the cellar.”

He said it with such authority that there was no question, we all fled to the cellar immediately. To my surprise, the cellar was actually a World War 2 bomb shelter. I was concerned that I never knew this before but also, it wasn’t really the time to be asking why.

We were safe down in the bunker for 3 weeks before my wet cough became problematic. I grew increasingly pale, sweaty and feverish. That’s when the General strapped me to a bed and injected me with amoxicillin from his post-apocalyptic doom’s day kit.

He tries to walk away quickly but I grab his sleeve and violently pull him close so he’s forced to look me in the eye. And although weak and labored I muster up the strength to say, “General, I needed this amoxicillin weeks ago. I’m your daughter how could you wait?”

And for the first time, the General brushes my hair back and kisses my forehead and tells me, “ I waited because you didn’t really need it until now and I’m just hoping there’s enough to keep you stable until this is over.”

The General looks deep into my eyes and squeezes my hand. He flintches nervously as a tear forms in the corner of his eye. It takes him almost a minute before he's able to form the words to say, “I would like for you to call me Dad.”

I squeeze his hand back with all the strength I have left and tell him, “for the first time, I feel both safe and loved. Thank you…Dad.”

The meaning of love changes with age. As it should, time teaches you the meaning of love. Unfortunately, we live in a society of manipulation of what love should be. People want to wait for a Rom Com romance or boy meets world scenario. Everyone wants a fantasy romance for free. Love is not free; you attract what you put out. The best romances develop when someone truly knows themselves.

To love yourself is complete acceptance. To love yourself is learning how to transfer what people said were weaknesses into absolute strengths. The meaning of love changes as you grow. Naturally, time teaches you the way to love uniquely based on how you best love.

Shadowed figures dance above my bed, cynically taunting what remains of my slow depleting sanity. As if trying to illuminate some sort of tragic omen that hung over my subconscious. One just beyond the reach of full comprehension. They render me paralyzed and weak. Leaving me senseless and lost in a fog of disorientation, as they feed off my hollowed-out existence. They want something from me, but what is unclear. They never speak, they never draw closer, they simply hover along the ceiling in ominous anticipation of an unsavory fate.

Daily paranoia transpires which, only fuels their chaotic appetite for causing destruction and despair. I question truth in reality and how much of that truth is only based off perspective. What is real verses fantasy? And where the line is drawn that distinguishes between these two worlds? The more I question, the faster my energy drains. I become lightheaded and dizzy to the point I can no longer stand. I lay my head down to rest and awake unable to recall any previous thoughts. Restless and anxious I push onward with the day, but an internal heaviness lingers. With no medical reason to explain such mental fatigue, the heaviness intensifies when considering the weighing question of possible insanity. Am I crazy or just tormented by these vast pits of emptiness that consume me?

These nightly phantoms who stalk and plague me would have me believe that this life is meaningless and small. That the world in which we live in is but a mere fragment in the entirety of the universe. I may never discover what these phantoms want but, they remind me that all feelings of loneliness and pain are bred amongst that which is unknown.