I thought I knew what it was…
I thought I could handle it…
I couldn’t…
Tonight I felt the most intense feeling of fear and uncertainty I’ve ever, ever felt. I can’t even describe the feeling except to say it was so crushing and so overwhelming I almost couldn’t breathe. While I was chatting via webcam with a loved one when she tells me that the tornado warning sirens are going off. I can actually hear them. We don’t have those in Idaho, mainly because we don’t have super severe weather. Anyway, a few minutes after that, she says, “It just got really, really quiet outside.” About 3-4 minutes after that, I hear the rain over her mic, she says, “I think we have a tornado, I’ll be right back” and walks back into her little boys room. As soon as she did that, the webcam went dark and she went offline on chat.
The next 5-10 minutes were horrible. I didn’t know what was going on…I was 1800 miles away from somebody I love and I had no idea what was happening. I could do nothing but pray, watch the weather channel(is it possible to break a refresh button?), and hope to hear something.
I finally texted her, “Are you safe?” just to see if I’d get a response. A couple minutes later, she texted back, “Yeah, just really bad” which did little to reassure me, but at least I got a response. A few minutes after the last text, my phone rang, it was her. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a voice sound sweeter or ever received a more welcome phonecall. We talked for a bit, her telling me about the big storm, me barely able to contain myself. I was feeling a combination of relief, fear, love, separation, and a few other emotions. At one point, all I could get out was “I didn’t like that” because anything else would have caused me to start bawling.
Eventually, the storm passed and I was able to breathe a little easier. We got back on camera and eventually I was able to return to my “pre-storm” blood pressure.
I’ve felt so may things since Rhoni came into my life more intensely than I’ve ever felt them before. I shouldn’t be surprised how intense this feeling was, yet, for some reason, I was. It’s like an old layer of skin has been pulled off, I’ve molted so to speak. The old, dead layer that used to surround me and numb me to things like this has apparently disappeared. While this is most definitely welcome, it also has the side effect of leaving me in positions like I described above. It will be a while until I get used to this whole “feeling” thing, but I expect it to be a very educational ride. As long as I have her with me, I’ll make it just fine.
Change is good…
