Walking alone in the parking lot late at night.

Fumbling around in my bag for my car keys.

Locking the car door as soon as I’ve closed it.

The fears that linger in the back of my mind haunt me in everyday things—my fight or flight senses are activated as soon as I step outside to the smokey fog of a daunting December night. 

Catching my reflection in the back windshields of parked cars jump-starts my heart into overdrive. 

People walking along on the near-by sidewalks become wanted criminals running from the law.

Sirens in the far-off distance don’t give the reassurance that I need to catch my breath.

Although the fear of being kidnapped is not irrational, my imagination takes that fear, twists, and bends it, until it is something completely different—the simple parade through the parking lot becomes a hasty chase to my car door.

Throughout my childhood, the best memories I made were when my imagination took the wheel; I sat back and watched as the ship that was my wildest dreams set sail.

But sometimes, just like in the parking lot, my mind would get the best of me. My mind would take a hold of the situation. My mind wouldn’t actually let me think of how far from rational my imagination was getting. Like partners in crime, my mind and imagination commit crimes against me. 

Although these two can create the best memories of my life, they can also create the scenarios that haunt me for the rest of it.

Just because these two can show us the worst—just like all good things—they can also show us the best. The best in ourselves. The best of others. The best of our situation. With a little bit of imagination, we can fabricate masterpieces Vincent van Gogh could only dream of creating. 

We can choose to take the wheel and put our imagination towards growth, or we can choose to let our imagination control us. 

It’s a dreadful experience to let our lives be defined as something we knew we could control. We can control our imaginations and use them to create amazing works of art and machinery that will advance man-kind or cure deadly diseases.

We have to take the lead; we have to not be scared of situations our brain is blowing out of proportion right in front of our eyes.

I have to train my imagination to not be scared of walking through parking lots.