As the luminous rays of sunshine sucked away damp areas of land, the flowers blindly awaited for the arrival of gold thieving bees. The seasonal summer morning of 2006 was the alarm which awoke my inner conscience. As a young naive three year old, I was about to discover new concepts about the world that were bound to happen one way or another. In my case, by having two doting parents who scanned my every move like a ravenous predator would do before it pranced on it’s prey, made my scenario more frightening. My awareness of my surroundings had been temporarily cushioned before I fell hard in the midst of reality. By living alongside my two valiant warriors, the thought of fears never seemed to occur within my mind. Every moment throughout my years so far seemed to be sweetly succulent, however, ever since my first dramatic moment in my life arose unexpectedly, I finally got a taste of bitter faze.

When the sun settled at the highest point of the sky, and the weather blazed with sweat provoking heat, my mother and father decided to clear up our messy front yard garden. Unaware of their motive I stood glancing outside from the front porch steps, at the lamprocapnos spectabilis plant, better known as the bleeding heart flowers. The vibrant, luxuriant bleeding heart flowers were being torn away from it’s roots. All the flowers were being dug up from the soil and trashed within a solid black bag. I then paused my gaze, and glanced back at myself foolishly in anticipation. I wore a brand new pastel purple dress with sparkly black shoes and impatiently called my occupied mother. I felt the need to brag to my mother and show her my magnificent appearance. The warning words of my father working alongside my mother sent shivers down my spine,“don’t come over here wait inside!” After processing the word “don’t” in my peanut sized brain, I decided to proceed anyways by witlessly approaching my parents.

For a split second all fell silent before reality literally surged up against me. Suddenly, swarms of aggravated buzzing soldiers came at me with one motive, to kill. At that exact moment, I realized what the meaning of fear meant. My knees went weak, my eyes sprung a leak, and my heart sank down way beneath my feet. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, it just so happened to. One particular humming creature latched upon my wobbly neck and pierced my skin by drilling in it’s sharp sword-like stinger. My recently developed terror, soon grew into a thick stormy cloud of panic stricken anxiety. My parents finally realized my dreadful situation, and whacked me with a rusty gardening stick to end my unmerited suffering.

In midst of the events which occurred these past few seconds, something in me seemed to snap together, aside from my aching neck. My heart and brain in conjunction, ingrained a lesson within me that I would never forget. My once puny peanut brain soon expanded into a thoughtful acorn, and my innocent, loving heart soon earned a scar of consternation. Life wasn’t what I expected it to be, but I guess fears are apart of growing up. Luckily though, my father repetitively mashed the so called bumblebee until it was as flat as a flimsy piece of paper. This experience was my first and last time interacting with bumblebees or any bug for that matter. This traumatic moment later developed my fear of bees, into a phobia of bugs. Even till this day, if my eye just so happens to catch a glimpse of a bug, whether it's large or itty bitty, my blood would run cold. My heart would pound against my chest forcefully, and deep inside, I would remember the belligerent thieves of gold, who stole my ability to be more bold.