129: Sally watched her house burning

Content warning: this episode includes discussion of suicide.

I had a scary experience with fire when I was a kid.

I grew up in Ohio, in a little town called Westerville. At the time I was probably around 12 or 13. This was on a Saturday, and I was hanging out with some of my friends from around the neighborhood. We were just doing stuff that kids do, mostly setting up ramps and jumping our bikes over them.

At some point we were walking around, in kind of a wooded area. Not the deep forest, but we were kind of off by ourselves, out of the sight of any adults. One of the guys had brought a lighter, and he was just flicking it, finding little sticks to light on fire. I guess as a pre-teen boy this is pretty fascinating. And it also had that little element of excitement, because we all knew this was something we really weren’t supposed to be doing.

Eventually he had a few sticks on fire, which he was holding, and when the flames got big he kind of panicked and dropped them. Of course, that meant the dry grass on the ground caught fire and all of a sudden things were starting to get out of control. 

But fortunately, the rest of us didn’t panic like he did. We all got together and stomped out the flames before they got very big. We were just stupid kids and we were lucky the situation didn’t turn into a huge problem.

My guest today is Sally. She experienced a house fire when she was young, and it was a scary experience that changed her life. Because on the day of the fire, Sally lost more than just her house.

Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:

https://WhatWasThatLike.com/129

This episode is sponsored by the Women’s Meditation Network – guided meditations specifically for women. More details at womensmeditationnetwork.com.

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This episode is also sponsored by the Deep Cover podcast – a show about people who lead double lives. Season 3 is now live! More info at https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/deep-cover

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