Lost in Anxiety

Heading home. You send the outgoing text.

You pull out of the driveway, shivering, not giving your car enough time to properly warm up. The winter evening is cold, and you left your coat at home. The only thing between you and the frigid air is your favorite flannel.

You head down the road, just as you have dozens of other times, from your brother's place to yours. Your boyfriend has been in a mood for a couple of days, so you escaped to hang out with your brother for some funny TV and free food. Sometimes you forget that your brother is younger than you, since he spends so much time taking care of you.

You hate driving at night. Your astigmatism blurs and elongates the headlights coming at you. The glares make the already faint lines on the roads nearly disappear. You try to focus on the lanes, hands tightening on the steering wheel every time someone passes you or comes a little too close.

Your mind wanders as you turn onto the highway and pick up speed. It's only 7:30, but it feels so much later in early winter darkness. You keep your eyes peeled for deer, cars that ignore signals, signs, and lights.

You see your turn coming up, put on your signal, and start slowing down before realizing that something doesn't feel right. You hesitate briefly, trying to figure out if you are trying to turn too early, and quickly realize there is no turning lane. You speed back up, turn off your blinker, and try to figure out what just happened.

Did you just try to turn too early? You watch the road closely for anything that looks familiar. The self-storage facility you pass, the Casey's right before your normal turn. Nothing.

Did you panic and just not see the turning lane? Maybe that was the right spot, and you just couldn't see it. You doubt what your mind just saw only seconds before.

Did you miss your turn? You've never done that before. You try to find another place to turn off, so you can figure out what's going on when you're not going 65 mph, but there are no turns.

The road slowly starts to narrow down to a two lane highway. You've never gone this way before. Your hands tighten even harder on the steering wheel; your knuckles are now white.

You glance in your rearview mirror. There are so many cars behind you, so many cars in front of you. There is no way to safely slow down and pull over. You keep driving until the road starts to turn. You can't find any turns off, and when you do find them, it's too late to slow down and turn safely. The small country roads are too hard to see in the dark of the night.

Cars turn off behind you, and you finally breathe long enough to slow down, pull onto the shoulder, and put on your hazard lights. With shaky hands, you pick up your phone and navigate to maps. You click home, and the directions appear - 13 minutes to your destination. You've nearly doubled the time it was supposed to take to get home.

With your map up, you ease yourself back onto the road and head towards the turn. In the darkness, you yet again miss it - not being able to see until it's too late, along with the pressure to maintain a certain speed as a courtesy to those behind you. Determined to not miss your next turn, you slow down, and even though you can't fully see the road, you turn into it where you think the road should be. Your heart races until long after you've safely turned the 90 degree angle.

Without the added pestering of traffic following you, you can comfortably drive slower, finding your next turn without hesitation. Glancing at your navigation, you realize your last missed turn pushed your arrival time back to 8:00 pm. You sigh, recognizing that your boyfriend will be starting to worry now that you're not home yet.

After another turn, you realize that following the current road will spit you out close enough to home you won't need the navigation anymore. You pick the phone back up and give your boyfriend a call, placing it on speaker before he even picks up.

"Hello?"

"Don't laugh... I got lost on the way home."

"I'll try not to laugh." You can hear his friends laughing in the background though. Your chest tightens.

"I just wanted you to know I'm running late."

You chat back and forth briefly for a couple minutes. You know you're okay, but your body is still in anxious mode. Your eyes burn with tears, your hands ache from their tight grip, and each breath hurts - in and out.

His voice calms you down a little, but half of your thoughts are on the new "as needed" anxiety meds sitting quietly in the bathroom cupboard.

"I'll let you get back to your friends. I'll be home soon."

"Alright, love you."

"Love you too." You put down the phone with a big sigh.

You start to slow down as the road curves. Again, you find the lanes hard to see. Trees start to surround you as you drive further down the road. Before you know it, it there are only trees to see. Left, right, behind, and in front of you. The branches arch over the road, like a beautiful, looming painting... If only it were daylight.

You ignore the feeling that you're in the beginning of a horror movie, and you ignore the voice in your head telling you to lock the doors. If something is fast enough to catch you at your current speed, it's not going to be easily stopped by a measly door lock.

You turn down the heat in your car, as you've just realized you've been sweating. You breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth - slow and steady, for a few breaths.

The trees start to thin slightly, and you approach a stop sign. As you slow down, you see a large bird land on one of the last trees before the openness you're used to. You smile slightly, it's an owl.

While the owl was an obsession of your youth, you still love seeing them as an adult. Beautiful, intelligent, majestic animals. So free.

After looking both ways three times, you continue on your path - suddenly hitting gravel. Taken aback, you realize the last stretch of road is not paved, and while you've driven on gravel many times before, this time it feels different. Maybe it's the darkness, maybe it's the increasing anxiety, maybe it's how aware you are of the way the gravel shifts under the car.

Steering wheel tight in hands, you focus on the road, using the last of your energy to get through the last bit. You jump slightly in your seat when you finally reach pavement again and suddenly, you realize you know exactly where you are... only about 3 minutes from home.

You feel light, almost weightless, as you drive the last few blocks home. This part of the drive you could do in your sleep. When you pull into the driveway, you sit for a moment in the dark. You take a few calming breaths and go home.