not in kansas anymore

with the nagging knowledge that my gas tank was near empty i made the decision upon waking today that i would at least go pump gas since the temperature is 20 degrees higher today than it's expected to be tomorrow.  from 8-12 i was in agony about having to go out.  i just dreaded it so bad!!!!  it was spitting rain but nothing major and it was warm so armed with the thought that i didn't have to actually talk to anyone i left here about noon.  i pumped gas successfully with my heart racing and hands shaking.  

then i really did it...i decided that since i had a sore throat and really wanted cokes i would go across the street from the gas station to the cvs and buy diet coke and benadryl.  i sat in my car for a couple of minutes telling meyself again and again that "if you get to the door and can't go in just turn around!" and then "if you get inside and have to leave just leave..."

after more than a year of severe anxiety, day upon day of being afraid to leave the house and a crippling fear of going anywhere alone i find myself utterly unprepared to do much of anything.  i felt like an alien in that drugstore!  so many things, so many choices, it seemed to double in size in my few minutes inside.  i may as well have been in a super walmart or a sams store.  while in no way comparing myself to someone from the third world, i imagine i feel, in some small way, like a person who has never been inside a store of any kind suddenly finding themselves in midtown manhattan in that 3 story k-mart (you know the one-near penn station if memory serves...)

i noticed that the rain had gotten heavier and when it was my turn to pay the man behind the counter said, referring to the man who just left, "he said he didn't know this storm was coming.  i thought everyone knew this storm was coming..."  i told him i didn't have a TV and that i had no idea we were to expect anything more than a little rain.  he said, "well be careful out there it's supposed to be bad!"  he had no idea to whom he was talking!  i got halfway home listening to the band's great "the weight" when the song was interrupted (!) by the national weather service with a tornado warning for nearby counties.  just then the bottom dropped out.  water pooled on the road almost immediately and my trigger went off.  my already pounding heart flipped in my chest and my shaky hands started to sweat and tingle.  the panic attack was coming. 

luckily i never did totally lose it as the rain let up within minutes and i got back to the house and inside without getting too wet.  i was out of the house just 35 minutes but was so exhausted i may as well have have just run a marathon.  my sinus headache was worse so i took the benadryl with a diet coke and chased that with a banana and peanut butter and took myself to bed.  i finally slept about an hour and am now set to write for a few minutes. 

grace and peace