My Sacred Life Day 24

A Fragile Safety

Yesterday I had my safety affected in an impactful way. After a busy morning, I went for a walk in the afternoon. I live in a somewhat remote, wooded area. Before I left, I hid my spare house key in a carefully selected outdoor hiding place (inside an old tree stump...we occasionally rotate the location) and I left my bulky ginormous key chain with everything known to man on it (including car keys, Lojack, key chain ornaments, carabiner, charms, etc.) in another location hidden on the ground inside a bush.

This has been my routine for years. I also set our house alarm. Normally, I'd just run out and leave the place open, but two weeks ago we had a violent (as in kicking in the door and ripping off the door frame) break-in and burglary right next door. So everything was locked up like Fort Knox. As it will be from now on indefinitely.

I was gone for an hour and twenty minutes. When I came back, my key chain was gone. I looked and looked for it, thinking that perhaps an animal like a raccoon had taken it and dragged it off. Finally I resigned myself that I wasn't going to find it, and my car keys and other keys were gone permanently.

I was glad that I had the spare house key to rely on, since my husband was unavailable to be called, and I had no phone access anyway. The spare key had been left where an animal couldn't remove it, thank goodness. When I went to get it, I found out that it, too, had been removed. An animal had removed it, but that animal had to be human. Someone had to have been watching me to have seen both locations; no one could have found both so quickly without seeing me beforehand. That was when the panic hit me...someone was watching my every movement from somewhere out in the woods. They probably didn't break in because there wasn't time, but they took the keys, so they'd be back later.

There's more to the story, but it just includes everything I did because I was so freaked out, how hard it was to find someone home to help me, how I finally got help, the police, the locksmith, etc., and mostly fear, and total terror.

I worked on processing it especially hard this morning (last night I just let the fear run rampant), with LoveHubbie gone to work, while I waited alone for the locksmith to arrive and make these new keys to our various doors and locks. I wanted to process the fear, forgive the thieves, and get into a space where I could concentrate on doing something besides just shaking and worrying. I have always felt totally safe, always, so this is the first time I've dealt with this. I worked on it some this afternoon, too. I am still very angry at the thieves (and still working on forgiveness), but feel empowered, like I am not living in fear (but anger, which is progress), and I can concentrate again.

Safety makes my life sacred, but it is important to remember that it is not an unequivocal safety. It is a fragile safety, a safety with caveats. A safety never to be taken for granted. Even the new keys---which I am unbelievably grateful for---do not make me safe. Bad things happen all the time. From far worse things than weirdos hiding and peeping from the woods. As 9/11 reminded us yesterday.

I could have been more cautious, and will in the future. And I won't take my safety for granted. I won't fear either.