I was at Hershey for a few days with Nephews A&B and their entourage. It’s our fourth year doing this and it’s been a blast seeing the kids’ stamina and bravery grow and change over the years. It was a fun trip, even with a bad foot and a bum shoulder.
The drive home was uneventful until traffic came to a standstill on I76 (we call it the Schuylkill [skoo-kull] Expressway). I was driving, Mom was in the passenger seat, and in the rear view mirror I saw a police car setting up flares about 10 cars back, closing our ramp to additional traffic. The map app showed the time left until I reach home climb from 30 minutes to 34 minutes to 45 minutes to 57 minutes. I closed the app.
I couldn’t reverse or turn around and exit. We were on an elevated ramp idling with no knowledge of what was going on. News helicopters arrived overhead. We were trapped. How long would we be there? What if my car overheated? What if my foot slipped off of the brake and I hit the car in front of me? What if the heat from all off the standing cars AND our years of historically hot summers AND our country’s literally crumbling infrastructure caused the ramp to fail, dropping us all onto jam-packed Oregon Avenue below? And I had a small, teary panic attack.
It’s no secret I’ve been laid low for the last few weeks and that event happening at that time was just too much. I did some box breathing while Mom attempted to keep me calm.
We turned on the news radio station and found out that there was a jackknifed tractor trailer about a mile ahead of us. [Link: Traffic comes to standstill after truck crash blocks lanes on I-76 east]
Eventually I settled down, eventually cars were allowed on the ramp behind us, meaning eventually we were able to begin crawling forward again. I cried when I dropped Mom off. I cried on the short drive home. I cried in the bathroom.
This morning I lay in bed after waking. This is no good. I’m tired. I’m tired of being halfway engaged with life (not work, I’m all in with work and possibly too much all in, but that’s all nonbloggable content). It’s short and precarious and beautiful and for me to get to be me again I need to be all in.
I’m going to shoulder PT in 45 minutes, which isn’t working as quickly as I hoped. Next week is my last week and I still can’t pull my right arm behind my back without a lot of pain. And me being me, I’m always trying to put my arm behind my back to see if it’s starting to feel better. I’m going to make another appointment with the shoulder doctor and see if there is something that the X-ray or ultrasound didn’t pick up on.
After that I’m getting my hair done and lightening the color because while I think I look better with it darker, I FEEL better with it not so dark. And I need to feel better.
I need to make myself to go the gym again, because I’m less sore and mentally better when I’m moving. I have at least 30 years left and I have to feel as good as I can for as long as I can.
All in.
(I need to fix the email newsletter settings because it’s weird ending the blog posts without the email link.)
