Treading lightly...

I went out to dinner tonight, with my sister and mom. We ate, we made wise cracks about certain people we know who do stupid shit all the time. You know, normal girl talk. But slowly, as the good food (and champagne) simmered in our bellies, we got to talking about our house.

I grew up in a big grey house, formerly known as "The haunted house", but really just an old convent my grandfather bought for cheap back in the 60's. To live in that house was to know the difference between 'real' ghosts and bullshit stories people tell to pass the time.

We had the typical stuff, like hearing someone calling your name. Shadows darting around. Apparitions. Blood footsteps down the hall. TV's going off when you said, "On." On when you said, "Off." And of course, there was the running upstairs. Like an olympic sprinter was darting from room to room.

Only there wasn't anybody there.

This is also the house where I would hear the buzzing. The ominous humming and still to this day, mysterious deep hum that turned into a buzz that radiated through the walls and into my body. And the paralysis. I remember nights waking up on a metal slab in a dark room.

That's when I started to find far too many similarities between "alien abductions" and "hauntings". That's also when I started to believe in a higher, more powerful GOOD power. Because something protected me. Always. The house I grew up in was haunted. Simple as that.

But then something happened.

One day, my grandfather. My Superman in life, became my superhero in the afterlife. And this is where the conversation peaked. Because my mother, my sister and I remembered when the bad feelings in the house went away. When my grandfather died it was evident he was protecting us in that house. And in many ways, he was protecting us FROM the house.

There was a time I would never venture into the basement. You couldn't pay me. Now I go down there without a care. My mother wouldn't even walk passed the basement door, but as she went on to explain, she recently went down there at 2am to check on her thermostat.

Places that were a no go are now harmless and absent of all darkness. There is no evil there. Nothing to fear but cobwebs and old adidas sneakers. The closets have nothing but clothes in them. No one lurks. And most of all, if I sleep there, I sleep like a baby. From time to time, we see his shadow. We hear him whistle. He is everywhere and nowhere at once.

All I can say for sure is, I grew up in a haunted house. But if you came for a visit, you'd think I was full of shit.