In the blink of an eye

I was recently reminded just how human I really am. I was further reminded of just how much I need other people and what an important role friends and family really do play in my day to day affairs.

This weekend, after a nice family gathering in Atlantic City celebrating my cousin's birthday, I came face to face with my mortality. I was driving on the Garden State Parkway and it began to rain profusely, with wind blowing to boot. To say that visibility was limited was an understatement. I had just received a phone call from my mom a few moments earlier telling me that the weather advisory had just issued a tornado warning for the area through which I was traveling. At the time when visibility was completely removed from me I was on the phone with my cousin, who was not far into his departure from Atlantic City. I was warning he and my other cousins of the hazardous weather conditions. As I was talking to him, I decided that I needed to pull over to the shoulder because I really could not see shit. As I pulled over to the shoulder of the road, I quickly realized that immediately in front of me was a guard rail signaling the end of the shoulder. I panicked.

I panicked because to my right and directly in front of me was the metal guard rail and immediately to my left was oncoming traffic....replete with cars and trucks who didn't seem at all fazed by the torrential downpour that we were experiencing. Nope, these vehicles, especially the trucks, were FLYING! All I could think was that if one of these trucks decides to veer off to the side of the road real quick, or hydroplanes and slides over here, they are going to smash little old me into this here guard rail and that will be that.

Needless to say, I was scared to death! So, I did what any poised and confident young lady would do under such duress and I began to scream frantically into the ear of my cousin "OH MY GOD!!!!!". At some point, during this '30 second/seemed like a lifetime' ordeal I thought it wise to open the car door and attempt a brave escape...only to be scared back into the car when another truck whizzed by so fast and came so close to me that I screamed louder- further unnerving my poor cousin on the other end of the phone who was frantically trying to ascertain the nature and severity of my dilemna. All I could see was headlights and rain and all I could feel was the terror of impending doom.

Well, with my cousin's encouragement, I finally mustered enough courage to attempt to get off that shoulder and into the flow of traffic...the problem was that the cars were coming so quickly and I had NO ROOM AT ALL to accelerate and merge....I had to gun and run when the time came and hope that my ass didn't hydroplane into oblivion.

Well, as I lived to tell my grandmother later that day, God truly does look out for babies and fools...not sure which to categorize myself, but I am sure I fit in there somewhere. Once safely out of harms way, I called and text some folks, mended some petty rifts real quick and spread a bunch of telepathic I love you's all around. I think that my faith is pretty strong, but you see just how strong it is when tested under situations like that. I think that deep down, I knew that no matter the outcome, God was in control...but the pool of panic and sheer terror was just too tempting to not plunge into....headfirst.

For the next few days, I barely kept my head above water in said pool of fear. I have felt completely out of sorts and weighed down by the volume of the fear that has shadowed me like a stalker. I have felt really clingy to folks and really very much in need of reassurances and hugs and closeness. I realized today that the fear I experienced on Saturday was very much real and almost akin to the fear that manifested in me the day that I almost got robbed by a dope fiend in front of my house several years ago....thank God for baby daddies from the hood!(nother story, nother day :) Anywho, It takes a lot to conjure that type of emotion in me, but once tapped into, it does not abate easily.

I know that everything happens for a reason. I am sure that what I believed to be my near death experience (okay, maybe this is a stretch, but it's how I felt at the time)was a wake up call of sorts for me. We all need them every now and then to realize what is important, what we take for granted and how important it is to take care of the people you love as they can be taken away from you...in the blink of an eye.