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62 elementary school every day since it was only a few blocks away. Sometimes I walked with friends, sometimes I was alone. And one day after walking home by myself, I got in the door, then spontaneously started crying...but I had no idea why. My mom kept asking me what was wrong. But I didn’t know! I felt like part of me was upset and traumatized, but yet I didn’t know why. Another time when I was about six this happened at school. We were getting ready to leave to go home, putting on our coats and gathering up our lunch boxes and stuff, and I started crying with that weird split thing happening. I was watching myself cry, but not knowing why. One little girl asked me what was wrong - was I crying because I was happy maybe? The teacher had just been reading a story to us, so she figured maybe the story was affecting me and I was crying with happiness? (future psychologist. ;) ) I shook my head no, confused. I felt embarrassed because I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why I seemed to not be in control of myself. Those are the only two incidents like this that I remember. The one thing these two incidents do have in common is that they both involved walking home from school. Either having just arrived home from school, or, about to head out to walk home from school. So....... something very upsetting and traumatizing happening or maybe about to happen but which I couldn’t remember during the time I left school — alone — and arrived home. Bedposts. I was terrified of my bed posts around age three? Four? Called them “The Woodens.” They were small and round, and looked like bald headed creatures to me, and if I looked at them long enough at night while lying in bed, I’d get hysterical and start screaming and panicking until my parents would come and calm me down. What did they remind me of - “aliens” of some type? Even my dad later questioned this, said he thought that my terror of the round bedposts was indicative of “something.” He stopped short of saying aliens, even though he totally believes in aliens and UFOs. Probably because to say that out loud is just too weird. It’s a place that most people aren’t comfortable going, even if they intellectually know it to be true. [Update: After the original writing of this book I’ve since had a memory involving being a little kid in Westfield, in my bed in the dark, surrounded by little bald headed aliens around my bed. The Chasing Phantoms i