WARNING: Long and quite possibly uninteresting

When I was about six months pregnant with Fynn, I had been kind of down, not to mention so exhausted that it took superhuman effort to close my eyes. I'd cooped Ewan and myself up for several days, not going anywhere or even taking him outside to play. I remember getting a boost from an article or church or something, and it made me feel all empowered and I woke up one morning determined I wasn't going to be all mopey anymore, that I was going to live better and happier every day. My first priority was to make sure I made it up to Ewan, to make sure I gave him a full, happy, active life for a little boy. My very first step was to wake up one morning and immediately after breakfast take him to the park and let him play for as long as we wanted. It was around 10 am, and we were the only ones there. The parking lot next to the park was empty when a man drove up, parked right next to my car, and immediately I got this prickly, ill-at-ease feeling. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I knew something was wrong. I watched that man like a hawk. I didn't know what was up, but I knew something was going to happen. All he did was get out of his car, open the door and stand there. I figured he was waiting for someone, and I figured it was probably for a drug deal, or worse. Something to explain the naggy feeling I had. I was so nervous I was nearly shaking, and finally after ten minutes, he left. Just got in his car and left. I decided to leave immediately in case he came back, and as we walked to our car, I noticed glass all over the ground. I was sick to look in Ewan's carseat and see all the glass in it. I knew then where that bad feeling had come from, but was relieved when I noticed our stereo was still in the car. (We've had four of them stolen since we've been married.) But then I remembered that my purse had been in the car. (And I don't ever leave my purse in the car, unless I'm going to be fifty feet away and in full view...) Fortunately for us, I had no credit cards or money in there, but unfortunately, my sonogram pictures were in there. The ones where we could see Fynn's face so perfectly and, seriously, could already tell he looked like Ewan. I was even madder when I heard that he'd had a woman in the car, hiding, and she is the one who slithered out and did the dirty work. I thought, "Hey, aren't we, like, supposed to be like sisters. Or something?" I won't bore you with the rest, but there is a point to all this, I promise. I talked about how this made me feel a little here, and even though it was a minor incident, it really was a couple of weeks before I could sleep through the night without thinking about it. I was so angry that I had been so stupid, and it freaked me out, and I had that vulnerable, victimized feeling you hear about.
Since the new year, I've wanted to be more active, and since we have a nice park at the end of our street that takes less than 15 minutes to walk to, I've plopped Fynn in the stroller a couple of times and walked with Ewan to go play. Yesterday we went again, and on the way, for some reason, I had that same prickly, ill-at-ease feeling. We passed some people that looked harmless, but, eww, something about them scared me. They ended up at the park with us, and kept whistling to a large group hanging out on the street, signalling each each other about something, and they were just making me so nervous. I couldn't ignore what I was feeling, so we left. And even walking back, Ewan was acting odd. He was really upset, but he couldn't tell me why. He kept saying, "I'm worried. How will we get home?" I just felt so completely unsafe, and it wasn't just the two I mentioned that made me nervous. The gang graffiti that is sprayed all over my neighborhood was no help, either.

While our immediate pocket around our house, ten or so surrounding neighbors, is fine, you get beyond that, and it's just kind of scary. There have been a few shootings I know about, and our neighbor's house was broken into. When we first moved in, we kept getting letters from someone in prison. All this to just say, I'm tired of feeling unsafe. It's not just my neighborhood, but the world. How do I not be completely paranoid? I think I need to quit reading the news...

Anyway, this was really pointless, but I have nothing else to write about right now. I've talked to Bryce, and we've agreed to set ourselves a timeline for moving in two years. We're going to try to get out of debt, save some money, and then possibly rent a house, so we won't be tied down, in the same ward boundaries (which are huge) because we love our ward so much. For the first time in my life, I feel like a real member of a ward family, and there are awesome people there. Someday we dream of moving to Oregon, the coast. Or perhaps somewhere we can actually experience four seasons, rather than two: muggy with a mild chill, and muggy with melting skin.