Jesus take the wheel

Last night, after valeting cars in subfreezing temperatures I endeavored to drive myself home during what can only be called a blizzsaster – hey, I'm a Texan. Any amount of precipitation (frozen or not) wreaks havoc on all living things here. We just can't cope. My valet job had me in Arlington, Texas and after my shift I had to get my frozen self home to Oak Cliff, which is a little over 20 miles away. My coworker also lives in the OC (don't call it that) so she used her iPhone to find the path of least resistance for us. You may be wondering why we didn't just get a hotel near the job site. Well, there's a very logical explanation for that. Jerry Jones made a pact with the devil and has promised the beast the soul of every Dallasite that is not a football fan. With no room at any inn, coworker and I began the slow crouch toward home. 

At the very first stop light we encountered we learned two valuable lessons. 1) You need about 20 feet to stop in 4 inches of snow. Without exception. I almost rear ended her, and not in the good way. And # 2) Once you stop you may not be able to get going again. This meant that we would not be stopping at any future stoplights. And I was going to stay the hell away from her rear end.

I hadn't quite gotten all the ice off of my windshield wipers from the previous two (3? I've lost count now) days of ice pummeling. The effect of this created a psychedelic porthole right in front of my face. As the flakes of snow hit this part of the windshield they would stick, and then melt seconds later because of the defroster. The residual ice on the wiper would smear the fresh droplets creating a perpetually smudgy section directly in my field of vision. I alternated with psychedelic-porthole-vision (PPV) with head-out-window-vision (HOWV) for the entire two hour pilgrimage.

When I say that this was the most intensely terrifying experience in recent memory, I mean it. I've been in should-have-been-killed-or-at-least-maimed car crashes, seen 8 people die, like, right in front of me, and sung solo a' cappella karaoke in a judgy gay bar. So, I'm like totally hard core. After 30 minutes of PPV I began to white knuckle grip my steering wheel. Nothing scary had happened, but the antici......pation of the would-be doom stirred something in me that has been gone for some time now. I began to pray. Like straight up “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” praying. My iPod was set to a genius mix of Bing Crosby who has historically always brought me so much peace and serenity but tonight it just wasn't cutting it.

I started to think about how much I still had to do in life, and that if I were to die while driving in these conditions people wouldn't comment on how bravely I died (which is a hope of mine) but how stupid I had been to attempt the trip anyway. I couldn't die because I was stupid and foolhardy. I couldn't die so Jerry Jones could keep his pact with the Devil.

Every no-tell motel I passed, I thought to pull over and demand to sleep in their office. But I didn't want to get stranded there with the types of folks who frequent motels by the hour. The last time I stayed at a motel (a national chain, that did NOT rent by the hour) I had my first anxiety attack in 5 years. I could literally feel the germs crawling on me. After an hour of driving less than ten miles an hour my nerves were so frazzled that I thought my best bet would be to just drive into a snow bank and wait for the sun to come out. I was having a very tough time handling the pressure. There were cars riding my ass (jack wagons!) and bridges with nothing more than a tin barrier separating me from a plunge into the beyond. To put it mildly-I was starting to hyperventilate. Despite my frequent switches to HOWV (head-out-window-vision, keep up!). Every few miles I'd see another stalled out or abandoned car, most of which were SUVs. Which I thought were supposed to be equipped for this sort of driving, at least more equipped than my little ford focus. I kept thinking that I was next. That I would crash and would need to keep my car running for warmth but that the snow would pile up while I slept blocking my exhaust pipe and then kill me in my sleep. Yes, I actually think of ways my mundanely innocent or survival-driven actions could accidentally kill me. All. The. Time.

Spoiler Alert! This is not my car. I survived the trip.

And then, just as I was reaching the peak of my mental breakdown and right before I gave up and swerved off to the side of the road to await my accidental asphyxiation something happened. Something I will call the hand of God. Or the calm of God. I don't know what I'm calling it yet, but it happens to me exactly when I need it. I became overwhelmed by a feeling of peace. My thoughts turned from creative ways of dying to “It's all going to be ok. Everything is fine.” I have tried to explain it to my friends and the best I've come up with is this. During very upsetting moments in my life where I either perceive my life to be in eminent danger or it actually is, I have a moment of clarity. And this degree of clarity could not come from my paranoia-addled brain. My body relaxes, my mind clears, my heart slows (not so slow that I think I'm dying from a blood clot) and I know that everything WILL be ok. That I am meant for a bigger purpose, that my “job” isn't quite finished and that whoever is working through me isn't done with me yet. I know I will survive. *cue Gloria Gaynor*

I am sure it sounds incredibly presumptuous to say that some divine or otherworldly entity would stop all of their other worldly duties to swoop in and pat me on the back and tell me it's all going to be ok. But I'm a pretty presumptuous person. But for realsies, I'm fairly certain that this calmness is coming from someplace inside my head. But isn't it an amazing thought to think that there's something out there that's rooting for ME (or you, but get your own blog and blab about it). That there is something so much bigger than all of my neuroses?