You never know how you are going to handle something until you are put in that situation. In the moments where we are tested, we learn about ourselves, and a lot of times we are surprised. I have been in numerous situations since high school where I have been humbled in a sense that I found out that I am not as brave as I once thought. During my freshman year of high school, I was put in a situation that proved just how “brave” I really was.

All of my life, I thought of myself as this strong, fearless girl who would be ready to take on any “bad guy.” When my parents would ask me what I would do if someone ever broke into our home, I would respond “I’d kick him in the balls.” Oh my, oh my, I look back at my little warrior self and laugh. However, when reality hit hard one night my freshman year of high school, I learned that I had overestimated my reaction to theft.

It was about 10:30 p.m., I was in my room listening to music through headphones and playing solitaire online. My door was cracked, and the house was quiet. Suddenly, I heard a scream like I had never heard before. It was my mother. Following shortly after, my sister screamed that same blood-curdling scream. I heard a loud THUMP. Someone had beaten down the door, I thought. Next I heard my sister run past my room, and shut her door. Panic started to set in. My heart raced in my ears (bum bum, bum bum), and instead of going out and facing our intruder like I had always said I would, I decided to do the logical thing, which was to hide under the covers. At the time I thought that if I was going to die, I just didn’t want to see it happen. Seconds felt like minutes as time slowly passed. Another scream. This time it’s my dad. Then, all was quiet again. I heard my dad ask, “is everyone okay?” I decided it was now safe, so I crawled out from under the protection of my sheets and headed to the living room. We were all okay, the front door was closed and locked, there was no intruder. “What happened?” After a few confusing minutes, we pieced together what caused such a misunderstanding.

My sister had gone into the living room to get wrapping paper out of the hall closet, located directly next to the front door (because waiting until 10:30 to wrap a friend’s birthday gift is a great idea). My mom had dozed off while watching TV in the recliner which is near the front door and hall closet. When my sister opened the door to the closet, it startled my mom awake and she, in her still-slightly-asleep state, screamed thinking someone was entering the house. This caused my sister to scream because she did not know why my mom was screaming, then she took off running, When my sister ran, my mom decided it was time to run too. However, my mom was in a Snuggie (one with the pocket in the bottom for your feet), so when she jumped off of the recliner, she fell (the THUMP I heard). When my mom fell, she tried to grab my sister’s ankles to help pull her along (because she was thinking so logically at the time). This made my sister believe that my mom was having a heart attack so she decided to run to her room and shut the door since we all know that is First Aid 101. Lastly, my dad came running into the living room without a weapon dressed in just his underwear (which he swears would be enough to scare away any robber), and screamed because why the hell not? Everybody else was doing it, why shouldn’t he? Meanwhile, I was tucked away under the covers safe and sound praying what I thought would be my final prayer. Boy, every member of the Purcell family would be dead meat if anyone actually broke into our home.

Anyways, moral of the story is sometimes we surprise ourselves. We never know how we will react to a situation until we are actually in it. Sometimes, we will disappoint ourselves, but other times we will be proud of what we can accomplish. I think we are thrown into many situations like this is college, and I truly believe that whatever the outcome of our actions may be, there are always valuable lessons to be learned.

Kelsey Purcell is a mass communication sophomore.