The sun was just coming up over the Smoky Mountains after about an hour of driving on the morning after Lou’s big doctor’s appointment.
I had already accepted that I wasn’t going to be able to turn in the rental car on time — there was no way I could make it from Knoxville to Tampa by noon that day. Even though I left before the crack of dawn, I decided that I needed to let go of all of the things I couldn’t control, and admire the beauty all around me for a little while.
I really felt like God was showing up for me in a profound way. I could see His goodness and His beauty in the sunrise, and how He used the vivid light of the sun to make the purple mountains glow. That stunning view made me see how big God is, and all I remember praying is:
“I trust you, Jesus. I will trust you.”
I remember being thoroughly exhausted and emotionally drained by the time I made it through the thick of the Atlanta commuter traffic, but it was a huge mental achievement just to make it that far in such great time.
There were only two things I loved about that awful trip: one, being all by myself, and two, setting the cruise control to the posted speed limit.
It gave me such a tremendous sense of control (when I really needed it) to know that I’d never had to worry about getting caught up in any of the dozen or so speed traps I spotted along I-75 that day. The highway patrol cars looked like sinister brown cockroaches creeping out of the dense foliage along the side of the road, ready to pounce on arrogant speeders who had no respect for the law.
(Sorry. But by now, you must know that I can be very “rulesy” when I’m stressed.)
But since the very start of The Imposition Tour, my anxieties often overwhelmed me the most when I was in the car with Lou. His tendency to multi-task and push the speed limit totally frustrated and frightened me. It still does — but I’m working on that. (I promise — even though I know Lou doesn’t believe me.)
The thing is, for me, taking unnecessary risks like careless driving or speeding when life keeps dealing us blow after blow just seems foolish. Merely running my mental list of worst-case scenarios — like speeding tickets that we can’t afford — can take a physical toll on me, and cause my blood pressure to spike to what I’m certain are dangerous levels. But back then, when Lou would make a quick lane change, or set the cruise control over the posted limit, my body would honestly grow rigid and paralyzed with fears over what could happen.
So when it was my turn to drive, and no one else was in the car with me, I could take all of Lou’s fear-inducing variables out of the mix, and do things my way…
And, that felt really good.
Looking back on it now, I think the combination of being completely alone, and driving myself in the safest manner possible, ushered in some strange and unexpected new self-discoveries. Maybe the biggest discovery was this: I realized how much safer I could make myself feel when I was on my own.
For the first time since I married Lou, I wasn’t completely relying on my husband to hold me together, get me anywhere, or, to save the day. I was on my own again. My life and everything in it was all on me, and somehow, I was figuring it out.
On my own.
And, even though I was exhausted, I felt clear-headed and safe — which were two feelings that I seldom felt with Lou during this time in our lives. The past few years had been one horrible reality after another — and things were only made worse by Lou’s health crisis. We never had a real break from the stress, and it was wearing me down. Obviously I knew that our current situation wasn’t all Lou’s fault; but Lou had a way of making me feel worse about it sometimes.
Even the way Lou told me his “cancer free” news wasn’t calming me very much.
I kept going over Lou’s diagnosis repeatedly in my head. Of course, I was thankful for the tests that revealed there were no cancer cells present in Lou’s body at all. That was a total answer to my prayers! But there was just something that felt off about Lou’s recap of his appointment. (For one thing, he was still bleeding, and that wasn’t a big deal??)
I hated that I didn’t get to hear the doctor’s words with my own ears because I felt like Lou might be glossing over the details. Lou was acting too casual about all of it in my opinion, and I suspected there was information he was leaving out. For example, Lou wouldn’t give me a straight answer on whether or not the doctor thought his prostate was enlarged because of those testosterone shots.
Lou became very evasive with me about all of that, so I had to let it go. But I felt like Lou was shading the facts about what was really going on for some reason, and… I sensed that my husband was starting to push me away.
I do remembering having loads of grace for how Lou needed to process things. It was his body, and this whole situation was pretty gutting for him. A bleeding prostate brings up all kinds of fears in a man — virility, manhood, power, and youth… I’m at least wise enough to understand that without needing to be a man.
But what was happening to Lou was happening to me, too. I’m Lou’s wife, and our lives are intertwined at every level. We were in this together — no matter how you looked at it. So to me, it just seemed reasonable for me to get to ask questions, too, so I could get a better check on what the doctor really said.
Lou was my everything, and it was awful to feel excluded.
It was almost like the day I left Minnesota to make my first attempt at turning in our rental car, Lou and I started drifting apart. It was just a little bit at first, but the tides of fear were swift and strong, and they were also getting incredibly turbulent. And at that time in our lives, we were completely submerged.
We were both trying to survive a financial and health crisis at the same time — and, we were homeless. So the waters were roiling. But with hindsight, I can see that right after Lou’s cancer-free diagnosis, he started navigating our collective unknown waters on his own.
