Free Writing
audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_19
As she exited the highway and followed the cloverleaf around 180 degrees to face North, she could see the storm they were trying to outrun. The sky was so much darker than she had realized and her heart dropped in a way that she hadn't felt in years. She opened her mouth and her throat made a wheezing sound, proof that her attempt to breathe was going to require a bit more consciousness. Moving her right hand up to her chest, she kept her left on the wheel to maintain control. Their speed had diminished as her entire body reacted, foot off the gas pedal. Hand on chest. She exhaled a WOW and then inhaled as the air rushed in.
She thought she had gotten past this reaction to extreme weather. It wasn't nearly as bad as five years ago, standing in that field, watching the storm roll-in. She had literally seen the clouds as horses, front legs curled and furling again and again in her direction - like the wraiths in Lord of The Rings burling down the river bed for Frodo. The adrenaline had filled her body, and she had felt frozen in that vast empty landscape. As the panic rose into her eyes, the anticipation of the storm had sucked all the air out of her lungs. Fearing for her life in that moment, she knew, was irrational and yet she felt it, unable to move. This feeling was the cherry on top of a cake filled with harrowing personal experiences - compounding on the tornado PTSD, on the straight line winds, on the mountain top lightening storm …. None of them had killed her, but they obviously still lived inside her and it was that panic attack that had been the last straw. After that she acknowledged that something was off in her body and she needed to figure it out.
In comparison, she was able to manage herself today. She found a way to center and ground herself quickly this time - to see the rational ways everyone else moved about their lives despite the fast moving midwest monsoon. She felt more safe waiting it out in the presence of other adults, while her kids took their martial arts class, than sitting out the storm alone at home as the only adult in the house. Gratitude washed over her as she recognized progress.