By the time everyone we knew was leaving Salt Lake City for Christmas vacation, Lou and I were in a pretty bad place.
But Henry and Jim gave us a small bonus so we could travel to California for ten days — which felt like a total Godsend. Lou was able to set up some business meetings in LA — which he hoped would set the guys up for the year ahead with a nice opportunity for the company. Our plan was to go to LA first to tackle the business, and then drive to Palm Springs to check into a resort we’ve been going to for years.
It’s a healing retreat called Two Bunch Palms. We used to go to this spa once or twice a year when we were “fancy people” with a lot of extra money to spend, so it felt like a huge splurge and a gift to go there. They have natural lithium hot springs and meditation gardens that have always been such a peaceful place for Lou and me to recharge.
If there was ever a time when we needed to heal and recharge, this was it. We were able to book two nights at Two Bunch, and then our plan was to drive down to La Jolla to spend Christmas day with some friends of ours who have always felt just like family.
But it was going to be a lot of driving — and, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a very good passenger. Out of every environment in my life, the car seems to increase and amplify my anxieties more than any other place — even now.
I know my passenger fears are irrational, but no matter what I try, I struggle to keep it together when I’m riding in a car. Obviously, it’s a control thing. I know that much. It’s the fact that I have no control over any aspect of my life when I’m in a moving vehicle… And even when I’m driving, I have to go very slowly to feel safe, and, I often grip the steering wheel so hard that my fingers ache when I get to my final destination.
Cops on the side of the road, quick lane changes, tailgating, not using a blinker, seeing people tapping on their breaks ten cars up… These are just a handful of my many fear triggers in the car. I’m a basket case — I know. But no matter how hard I try to chant prayers or say the name of Jesus to calm myself, my body is almost always rigid with fear when I’m riding in a car.
Especially when Lou is driving.
But on this particular trip, my nerves felt like ground beef before we even hit the road, and I knew for sure that this was going to be a stressful vacation for me. In all honesty, I could barely function leading up to that trip, and Lou’s constant pain was dragging us both down to an all new low. Even though he was treating his gout with every kind of tart cherry extract we could find, the healing process was incredibly slow. There is seriously nothing you can do to ease the pain of a full-blown episode of gout — believe me, because we’ve tried.
The morning we left on our trip, I was trying my best to help Lou put on a sock. I remember how freezing his feet were that day, and so I tried to warm his bad foot by gently placing my hands on it to give it some heat. Lou winced in pain when I touched him.
He said, “Baby, I know you’re trying to help, but honestly — that’s killing me.”
You can probably imagine how much more pain I inflicted on him when I tried to wedge his foot into a thick sock! It was horrible — and I genuinely felt like his pain was mine. I even caught myself limping on my right side just because my awareness of his pain was so real to me.
But after we packed up our SUV for the trip, Lou insisted on driving. In all of the ways that the car represents a lack of control for me, driving seems to provide Lou was his greatest sense of it. So even though I was deeply concerned about him driving with a bad right foot, nothing about being in the car would make me feel safe at that point anyway. Plus, my slow, grandma-like driving would probably make Lou crazier than my bad passenger skills, so… I buckled my seatbelt and started chanting my “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” mantra under my breath.
We were only an hour outside of Salt Lake City when a full-on winter blizzard started swirling outside, making the roads very icy, and the visibility super dangerous. My body was wire-tight with fear as Lou drove us down the road.
I’m sure Lou was driving fine, but my fears made me struggle to keep my sanity. Lou snapped at me a few times because I over-reacted to just about everything I believed I saw that could trigger an accident, or get us a ticket. Every time Lou had to tap the breaks, it caused him to wince in pain — which only flipped me out even more. (If he only knew how hard I worked to repress my real fears and emotions, he’d understand that the “me” he saw that day was like a practicing Buddhist monk in comparison.)
By the time we rolled into the LA area, the traffic was as bad as ever, and we were running behind to make it to the first business meeting on time. So Lou was trying to make up a bit of time by leap-frogging his way over to the carpool lane. I kept trying to suffer in silence, but there were just so many things that were very literally terrifying me that day.
We’d been in the car for hours, and at that time, there was always this unspoken tension brewing between us in our relationship that meant there was absolutely no relief or grace… Or trust inside of either of us anymore.
When we finally exited the freeway, the GPS sent us down a strange side-road that had crazy twists and turns. I remember as clear as day seeing a sign that said, “Blind Drive — Proceed With Extreme Caution.” Even if Lou saw the sign, he didn’t seem to heed the “extreme” warning. He had one objective: get to the meeting location on time, no matter the cost.
To me, he was driving way too fast, and as we came over the crest of a small hill, I saw a car inching out of a driveway. I can’t promise you that we were even near the driveway, but in my condition, it felt like we were right up on it.
So I shouted, “Lou! Watch out!”
Lou slammed on the breaks with his bad foot, and he screamed in agony and frustration. I remember adrenaline overwhelming my system; my mouth went dry, and my cheeks flamed up. Lou swerved to the side of the road, slammed on the breaks, and attempted to catch his breath. He put the truck in park, and then he looked directly at me. His face was unrecognizable.
He shouted in a voice that shook the car, “I can’t stand you anymore! STOP TALKING OR I REALLY WILL START DRIVING LIKE A CRAZY PERSON!”
Right then… Right at that very moment, I heard something awful. It was an audible cracking sound inside of me.
It was as if someone had snapped a very dry twig right in my ear, and I could feel my emotions splinter. Then. Everything went all calm and white inside of me… I couldn’t even feel my limbs. We just sat there in this crazy stunned silence for a moment before Lou pulled the SUV back onto the road.
I remember I whispered, “I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
Lou shouted back, “Yeah? I know the feeling. I need a break.”
We both managed to regain enough composure to attend the meeting like two civilized adults, but I caught Lou shooting daggers at me with his eyes a few times from across the table.
