I Can't Drive... 25?

Well, boils and ghouls old Josh has some personal truth to drop on you today. If you’re not interested or up to hearing some personal stuff feel free to stop reading here. There’s no reason to feel bad about that. Sometimes these kinds of missives are just not people's cup of tea.

Are we cool?

Awesome, moving on.

Here’s the hard truth I am being forced to confront today.

I’m afraid to drive.

Here’s some context. I received my driver's license in the fall of 1992, and I’ve been driving ever since. In all of those years, The only time I’ve ever been afraid to drive was the very first time I got on Interstate 94 by myself. I’ve never been a person who enjoys driving, although for a time I came to find it a bit calming and enjoyable as long as I was going somewhere I knew. But that said, it never did more than give me a slight pause when I was making a longish commute.

That was, until this past winter.

One afternoon my wife was really craving her favorite dessert, fresh-made creme horns from a bakery in Cinnicinatti. It is a forty-five-minute drive from the house, but I was more than happy to make the hour and a half round trip to get them for her. When I set out for the store, it was early afternoon, warmish, and partly cloudy. But in typical southern Ohio fashion, it was dark, ice-cold, and spitting sleet when I departed the store for home.

Let me take a second and add something. I am leery of driving in the dark. At that point, I could do it without freaking out, especially if I wasn’t alone, but after the short tale I’m about to relate, I refuse to drive more than half a dozen miles at night.

So, like I said, conditions were less than optimal during the return trip.

I stayed in the right lane and just kissed the speed limit as I semi-white-knuckled the trip. Traffic was very heavy. It was the tail end of rush hour, and I did my best to just keep up with the flow of traffic despite the piss poor conditions. Or I was until the incident.

About halfway home, a Highway Patrol Officer had a car pulled over. I only knew this because of the flashing lights on top of the cop car. There was no way for me to get into the next lane due to the heavy traffic, so I concentrated as hard as I could to leave room between myself and the two vehicles on the shoulder. I was certain everything would be ok. Then the Officer stepped from between the vehicles, leaving me no time to react.

No, thank the universe, I didn’t hit him.

But it was close.

Way too fucking close.

I don’t remember much about the rest of the trip home other than the desire to throw up. When I finally ended the terror journey and was safe in my house once more, I kept the incident to myself. I mean, nobody was hurt. I was just a bit, ok, a lot, freaked out, but I was sure that would pass.

News flash, it didn’t.

The next weekend was my annual, or semi-annual, trip back to Michigan to see my friends and relax. I have LITERALLY made the trip more than a hundred times, and normally it’s no big deal. This time was different. When I reached the city limits of Toledo, my heart was hammering in my chest, and my stomach filled with that ice-cold water feeling that comes with my anxiety. Every time I was sandwiched between two vehicles or a vehicle and a concrete barrier, it took everything I had to not start screaming and crying.

I made it to Detroit Metro, but just barely.

The trip home wasn’t as bad because I took the long route around Toledo and again around Dayton when I got home. It was still hard, but I managed it. When I returned to Michigan a couple of months ago, I did the same, but I was in high anxiety the entire time.

Worth it, but terrifying.

Since then, all of the joy or at least lack of unease I used to feel when I drive has died. Every trip is an exercise of the will over the fear. Every time I leave, I have to psych myself up, and I spend the entire trip in a state of hyper attentiveness, which is ten times scarier than if I didn’t feel that way. I am trying to overcome the fear, forcing myself to drive when I don’t want to, but the best I’ve managed is a deadlock between terror and acceptance.

So, why am I writing this?

Like with all of my personal essays, it’s an attempt to work through my issues. Putting stuff out there has, in the past, helped me climb hills I never thought I could summit.

Will it help this time?

I don’t know. I tend to be mercurial in my moods, and maybe all this will do is make me feel better but not actually help me with the underlying issues. Or maybe this is the first step on the road to returning to normalcy.

I hope so.

Thank you for reading.

- Josh (05/22/2021)