I believe in monsters. I always have. When I was very young, I saw them. At night the walls of my room fell away into the dark and I saw them. Some of them watched me. Some of them talked to me. Some ignored me. I was awash in creatures that both looked and didn’t look like anything I found in the World Book Encyclopedias on my parents’ bookshelves or in the decades of National Geographics at my grandparents’ house. I knew the Yeti and Bigfoot were real before I’d ever heard of them. The same goes for the Nessie. I still believe monsters are real because there isn’t significant compelling evidence they aren’t.

This is the same reason I don’t doubt that life exists on other planets, that divine beings are real along with the multiverse… as Hugh Everett III first described it. It’s important to be open to these things. When the dark opens to you, you can’t unsee the dark. You can’t unsee the eyes.

This time last year I met a monster trying walk from Savanna, Illinois to Moline. It came in the rain… a heavy unrelenting rain that made me question myself. Wet socks. Broken boots. When I turned back I knew the monster had beat me. That time. Beat me. But didn’t kill me.

If I’ve learned anything over the last year since it’s that I don’t need to question myself. Yes, I’ve got a tricky hip and my feet aren’t the greatest. Yes, I trudge slow on the thin skin of the world. But I’ve also been reminded, being a lot dog out in all kinds of weather, looked through, dismissed, and overlooked: I’m not just a person walking through the world.

I’m a monster too.