Close Call

We had a pretty good scare today - Ben, Stella and I - while out for our morning run.

I wrote the story, but decided not to share. No need to recreate the visual. In brief, we had a very close encounter with a car and it's nothing short of a miracle that we all walked away completely in tact.

Which we did. Thank God.

I share for a couple reasons...my immediate reaction really surprised me, as did the events of the rest of the day.

First, I FREAKED on the guy. Like crazy lady, out-of-body-experience freaked out. F bombs all over the place, arms flailing, insane. Ordinarily I hate conflict and find myself apologizing for things I haven't even done.

In this case, I was like one of those mother birds on National Geographic when a predator approaches the nest - wings fully spread, feathers puffed out, going bonkers, squawking.

Second, it wasn't until we were all home and settled down that I actually started processing what had occurred. And my mind shifted from wonderment and gratitude to really terrible what-ifs. Then I cried and started giving Ben life-threatening hugs every 5 minutes.

And as the morning went on, I found myself drowing in worry (my dear old friend worry). I was so consumed by it and couldn't turn it off.

I contemplated designs for a full-body rubber suit for him to start wearing every day. I wondered if we could successfully abandon the world and become recluse. Seriously.

It is so easy (for me) to see how one could literally go insane with worry.

Thankfully I think my mind is finally ready to stop running through all the potential scenarios, but man, everything is just so different now. I can almost guarentee if the same thing had happened while I was out alone I would have been pissed for 5 minutes, and then never thought of it again.

Master of the obvious, I know. But these little people change everything.