A Birthday Adventure Part II

We made a pit stop at the Island in Pigeon Forge to visit a puzzle shop, pick up a little candy, and ultimately enjoy a margarita along the riverside. I can't say that our vibe improved too much, but the margarita must have done wonders because we caught a little universal assistance when we just made it to the trolley and back to our car moments before a torrential downpour. We crawled back through traffic across town in the pouring rain before the clouds finally parted for us.

As we neared closer to Pikekville, the sun began to set on our adventure and the roads grew more and more windy. I tensed at every twist and turn in the road and braced myself for the inevitable SUV rollover and subsequent tumble down the mountainside in a fiery crash. So apparently this fear was heights related as well. 

Meanwhile, my aunt was telling a long story about a time she was experiencing low blood sugar while driving and the friend riding in her car was terrified just like me. I finally lost it and yelled "I can't take this anymore!" To my aunt's credit, she did slow down for me, but the rest of the way home I continued to watch the minutes counting down the GPS until we would be home safe and sound. 

As soon as I got home, I cracked open a beer. I would have two that night. We played cards since I was way too wound up to go to bed anyhow. This event really shook me. For some reason it was way scarier than what I thought would be a super scary lift up the side of the Smokey Mountains.  My initial thoughts were that this is a control issue or perhaps a boundary issue. Maybe I shouldn't ride in a car with my aunt if I'm not comfortable with her driving. But this event happened over a month ago now and I'm still working on it. 

It wasn't until just recently when I was giving a piece of advice to my mother that I finally had a revelation about this experience. I always say you should take your own advice and the moment it came out of my mouth, I knew it was for me. It was something along the lines of "Why can't you just say how you feel?" Why couldn't I just say how I felt? Why didn't I just ask her to slow down? Tell her I was scared? Tell her I had already used up all my bravery for the day? Why did I have to wait until I couldn't take it anymore and then yell at her? On her birthday. 

Well shit. I can't change the course of this birthday adventure, but I sure hope I can learn to express myself when I don't feel safe. The logical part of me knows that feelings are what we're all here for. We're here to experience the world through our senses and our feelings are indicators to us. You're not supposed to keep them bottled up or stuff them down. You're supposed to express them in a healthy way. Laugh, cry, speak about how your feel. 

I still have healing to do around this, but I hope this incident opened up the gate to let the rest of that healing come on in.