Relief? Relief. 6/26/2006

Earlier today I was going from 94 to 57 when a gold SUV pushed into my lane right on top of me.  I broke pretty hard and started skidding all over 2 lanes and 2 shoulders.  I was sure, at least 5 different times during that 40ish seconds, that this was it.  I imagined the feeling of the impact from one divider, then an oncoming car, then another divider.  I was so scared.  How do you write that kind of scared?  I was scared of the phone call Bob, Zack, and my mom were going to get, then scared of dying, then scared of being mangled for life and not dying, and way back there...around the edges of all that fear...was something else...was it relief?  Was it relief that once I did plow into something, all the spinning would, alas, come to a stop?  Or was it another kind of relief...a cowardly kind?

If that is true, and there was some part of me looking to get out of this BEAUTIFUL life, I need to re-evaluate.  Some of the choices I have made may be really hurting me.  Candice said her only concern with me taking on this job was what this job could do to me.  Am I strong enough to be what over 400 smart people expect from me?  Am I looking for an excuse to start saying no?  Why was that feeling there at all - barely making itself known - but definitely hanging around enough to have me recognize it?

Relief.  I know that's what I felt when the spinning finally did stop, and I landed on the shoulder facing oncoming-2:00 in-the-afternoon-Chicago traffic....

without

a

scratch. 

Maybe that other thing was more of an acceptance of whatever's next?  My own relaxing into the awareness of this body's temporariness?  What's really clear is that something inside me completely took over and drove me out of that mess. Whatever it was, it wanted me to stick around, and I am here now, and here is good. That, I know for sure.