"Don't assume that your perception of difficulty is real." I Ching, Hexagram 33 Tun (Retreat), Line 1
"I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened" Mark Twain
On Monday October 29, 2012 I was driving from my office in Ringgold, Georgia to a meeting in Calhoun, Georgia around 10 o'clock in the morning. Because of the physical and mental trauma, I don't remember if the accident happened just north of Dalton or just south. It doesn't really matter. I was in the right lane of I-75 south with my cruise control on the speed limit of 70mph. I glanced up in my rear view mirror just in time to see a car in the act of slamming into the back of my car. At my speed of 70mph, he was going fast enough to total my car. The good news is that his very large SUV struck my car flat on our bumpers so that his car shoved mine forward (at his higher speed) but thankfully I was able to maintain control. If he had clipped either side of my rear bumper, things would have been much worse. The bad news is that my neck absorbed the impact. After four years and several varieties of therapy, my neck is much better, but it still remembers the collision.
In the ER of Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton, the x-ray technician said, "You are lucky that the impact didn't break your neck".
The damage to my neck was substantial, but the damage to my psyche was much more significant. I had sustained car accidents before, but none like this one. It was bizarre and could have easily been fatal. What happened? He told me, "I guess I went to sleep." I guess he was speeding and texting. He told the state trooper that he went to sleep. That is what the accident report shows.
Within two weeks my wife and I went on our scheduled vacation to San Francisco and to visit friends north of Santa Rosa in Healdsburg. We learned a new word at Enterprise Rent-a-Car at the San Francisco Airport-- "Walk up" You don't ever want to be a "walk up."
The fear of something happening for me is so much worse than "something happening." In the case of my accident, I had absolutely no time to dread the accident. It just happened. It was over in the time it started. I did have a piece of a second to contemplate the meaning of life and my impending demise, but I didn't have time to worry about it. When I fly I don't worry about the plane crashing. If the plane crashes I figure that I would just be dead. What bothers me when I fly is "what if when I try to print my boarding passes the night before the flight, my printer jams or I run out of ink and I miss my flight, ruin my vacation and ruin my life?" To calm myself I think, "That's ok. I can just go to the ticket counter and get my pass." But the thought quickly follows, "What if the line is really long and I miss my flight, ruin my trip and ruin my life?" Or, "What if my flight is cancelled. I miss my connection, ruin my vacation and ruin my life?" Pretty ridiculous, right? . But before you judge, what are you afraid of? Snakes? Spiders? Thirteen? Wasps? Black cats? Fear of failure? Fear of closed spaces? Fear of open spaces? Fear of heights? Fear of cats? Fear of dogs? Fear of disapproval? There are 530 documented phobias. They each have a "phobic" name and they each dramatically affect people's lives. You can even suffer with phobophobia--"the fear of phobias." But I'll get back to that.
I don't really know when this started. These irrational responses may go back to the car accident with my family when I was three. Or the tragic accident two blocks from my home when I was ten. I do know that there was something about that accident in Dalton that stirred it all up and made my "normal fears" much more exaggerated
Over the years I have read volumes of "self-help". Everything I have read says, "Stop worrying about things. Worry doesn't fix anything or prevent anything from happening. The only thing worry does is shorten your life. Worry and anxiety do real damage to your heart muscles and nervous system. If you want to worry about something real, then worry about worry.".
As much thought and preparation my wife and I had put into our trip to California, for reasons I don't remember we didn't arrange for a rental car. I know part of it was "Well how hard will it be to find a car at the San Francisco Airport?" Pretty hard. We approached several counters and they had no cars available. We ended up in the Enterprise line, he got on his phone and said, "We have a 'walk-up' " which is to say, "You are going to be traveling in the steerage". He said, "The only car we have available is a minivan." There we stand with four major credit cards between us at a large international airport and all we can get is a minivan? If I had been dreading driving in San Francisco, now my dread had a name--"minivan" Just like a plane crashing, I didn't dread dying in an accident, I just dreaded having an accident. Since we had car insurance and then insurance through our credit card, in a flash I imagined having to meet the San Francisco police, being on the phone with insurance companies, Enterprise and who knows who else. "Think of how much time that's going to take!" Our vacation will be ruined and my life will be ruined". We secured the van, and I drove out of the parking deck into the unknown.
We did have a close call once when we were on the wrong road. The Honda Accord in front of me stopped suddenly. I stopped suddenly and the car in my mirror was skidding toward me. Deja vu. We all got stopped without a crash. But in those few seconds the sensations of my recent accident flew to the surface. My nervous system didn't know the difference between what had actually happened and what didn't happen. The near miss did nothing to help my emotional distress.
I remember so much about driving through San Francisco, but there are gaping holes in my memory. Why didn't I let my wife drive? Why did I have issues with my directions and my GPS that got us temporarily lost? I just don't know. What I do know is that every mile was an emotional event. For someone who usually enjoys driving, there was no joy in this trip. The biggest mystery is why didn't I know we were going to cross the Golden Gate Bridge? Why was that a surprise? And why did I think that driving across the-golden-gate-bridge was such a big deal?
As we approached the bridge my heart was racing, my adrenaline was pumping, my palms were sweaty and I was very upset. The possibility of having an accident on the Golden Gate Bridge was about the worst thing I could consider. For starters, we were on US 101/California Highway 1 but I thought we were on the wrong highway. I thought we had no business navigating the bridge traffic in the first place. There was no good reason for us to be there. But at that point, it's not like we had any choice. We paid our toll and I plunged my minivan into the stream of cars onto the famous bridge. About halfway across the bridge I realized that it was no different than any bridge and within a few minutes we were on the other side. Now I had to find a way to turn around and go back across the bridge. We took an exit,turned around, paid our toll and went back across the Golden Gate Bridge. This time I had calmed down quite a bit. We then took the first exit we could find to figure out how to get to Santa Rosa. I saw a taxi sitting in a parking lot. I pulled up beside it and asked the driver for directions. He said, "You need to get back on 101 and go across the Golden Gate Bridge. Highway 101 will take you to Santa Rosa." We had been on the right road all along. I thanked him for his help. We got back on US 101, paid our toll and went back across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was still stressful, but much less so. I had driven across it recently.
We had an argument that night in our hotel in Santa Rosa because I wanted to hibernate and my wife wanted to find a nice local restaurant for dinner. My argument was "For the first time today I'm relaxed and I feel comfortable. We've made it here safely. Let's not press our luck. Let's not try to find our way through Santa Rosa at night." Her argument was, "We are on vacation in California. We may never come back here. Let's find a really good restaurant and eat there."
I became rational, relented and we went out to eat. Zazu's was one of the best restaurant experiences ever. We learned that the owner/chef had recently won the Iron Chef. We also learned that even though she was a vegetarian, pork was one of her main dishes and she raised her own pigs. She said, "The way I look at it, I give those pigs a really good life and then they have one very bad day." I really felt for those pigs. And I hoped that they didn't see it coming. For a couple of hours we ate marvelous food, talked, laughed, relaxed and I felt completely human again. The trip to the hotel was uneventful. We were back safe and sound. Life was good.
The next morning, things got so bad between us while trying to find the breakfast restaurant, I pulled over to the side of the road for us to continue our very heated exchange. Although we were only on morning one of a planned seven day California adventure, we decided that driving back to the airport and flying home would be the best option. Enough was enough.
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