Breathing fear

As I step out of the teaching hospital into the crisp night air, I contemplate how long I’ve been afraid of the dark.

I live in the darkness this time of year. Get up in the dark, run in the dark, bike in the dark, stay sequestered under artificial light indoors all day, and contemplate my career choice in the dark while shoveling in some nutrients before tripping into a dark bedroom to sleep.

The motivational signs on the bike paths (you can do it!), for whatever reason, have recently morphed into lurking rapists.

That, coupled with my extreme fatigue, has been motivating me to drive more frequently. Trouble is, I don’t have a parking pass. I park on a road about a ¼ mile from the teaching hospital, so I’ve taken to running to my car. I tell myself that it’s to get home more quickly, but truthfully, it’s because I’m scared.

Clutching my car keys splayed out like brass knuckles, I shoot out the barn door, around the flower beds of the diagnostic lab, through the parking lot for richers with parking passes, across an unlit road and bridge, through the unlit university tennis court parking, across the rotting plank spanning the gully entering the field, and faster through the field until I finally pop out on the lighted road parking.

My wobbly platformed Dansko shoes occasionally betray my ankles. My heavily laden messenger bag flops painfully against my ribs. But when I reach the light, I smooth my crumpled up clinic smock and pretend I’m a normal person. One who doesn’t work 12 hour days and 80 hour weeks for no pay. One who doesn’t cry in the bathroom when her equine patients tear themselves apart in the recovery stall. One who isn’t eating white rice for dinner, again! One who remembers what it is to stand in the light of day.

I don’t consider myself to be an especially fearful person, but I’ll admit that I tend to become especially preoccupied by my fears. As much as I try to play this routine off as a casual jaunt, there’s no denying my breath is unusually quickened, and my ticker is rhythmically pulsing on my sternum.

Yet by the time I reach the field, a subtle shift has occurred. My fist unclenches, my vital signs return to this atmosphere, and my arthritic jaw pops back into its rightful locale.  As soon as I allow the fear to wash over me, I am able to embrace it as an ally.

By the time I reach my car, I’ve forgotten what all the fuss was about and wish my car were miles away, so that I might continue to level my head.