We had a lot on us when we were kids. Do you remember? I sometimes think back and wonder how we made it through with all the stress.

One of the things I struggled with the most, probably, was the door of the house or the door of the refrigerator. I guess I had a problem with doors in general.

“Don’t slam the door!  Hold onto the door!  You’re going to pull the doorknob off! Don’t hang on that door!”

It seemed like someone was always watching me when it came to my association with doors.

If the air conditioner was on, I think the adults in my life would have felt better if we had just stayed in the house and never left.

You couldn’t open the door and get it closed quickly enough.  

“Close the door, the air conditioner is on! Close the door, the heat is on!”

I would go as fast as I could, but even then it didn’t seem like it was fast enough.  

Then there was the fridge. It was best to pre-plan your visit to the fridge, because it was an absolute cardinal sin to stand with the door open.  You weren’t supposed to stand there and look for something because if 20 seconds of warm air got into the fridge, all the food would spoil.

If anything tasted weird, it was surely because I had stood with that door open.  

Of course, there was always the threat of letting bugs into the house. If you opened the door for a fraction of a second, a whole swarm of killer mosquitoes would fly in because they were waiting right outside the door.  Then, they would set up housekeeping in your house, bite you and defile your food and torture you for weeks on end.

Even though the lifespan of a mosquito is about a week, the mosquitos you let in the house on Memorial Day weekend were surely still alive in late July.

I remember thinking that one day, when I had my own house, I would stand as long as I wanted with the door of the refrigerator open. I would fling doors open and leave them open. 

Sometimes I do leave the fridge open, especially when I am getting ingredients out to put a meal together. But still, I feel that old urgency from being a little kid and feel much better when it’s closed. I bustle around the kitchen and grab what I need in a hasty manner and close it quickly.  

I never slam it, of course.

My entire family seems to be a bunch of hippies when it comes to leaving the back door open. They will leave it open if there is a breeze and if the dogs are coming in soon. They don’t think about bugs flying in. 

Once I came home to find the back door propped open, and I said “Why?” and someone said “It was so windy that we didn’t want the door to slam shut.”  

“What?”

 I fuss and immediately go to get the fly swatter so I can kill the swarm that has been camped out just beyond the patio. I tell others that there have been families of mosquitoes and flies living in our house all summer and I’m convinced that large groups of them have flown down and carried off small pieces of mail or my car keys.

And I am surely riddled with all the disease that mosquitoes and flies carry.

When one of the kids comes home from a function or work, they will invariably leave the garage door up, regardless of the weather.  I hear myself saying things like “If you leave that door up, this will happen. Do you know that the house will stay warmer/cooler if you close the door? I am trying to keep leaves out of the garage.”

On and on I go, echoing things I used to think were annoying.

I try to be hip and happening with my ideas about doors, and I try to put myself in the shoes of the more carefree, laid back people I live with.  

I try really hard, I’m telling you.  

But in the end, I feel much better when everything is closed up and when there are no small insects flying around the house.  The fridge door is closed.  All doors have been closed quietly and waves of lovely air conditioning or heat are being carefully and efficiently contained inside the house where we are all sitting, not thinking of opening the door.

Even for a fraction of a second.