in which i did not die.
it's no secret that i have a highly flammable fear of tornadoes. the mere mention of the 't' word makes my palms sweat. i torture myself with discovery channel storm-chasing specials, weather watching and tornado research - all in order to conquer my fear. because once you understand something, it's not as scary, right? um, no.
due to my slight weather obsession, i'm very familiar with wall clouds, super cells and what the sky looks like right before all hell breaks loose. brian busby has been a good teacher. and, i, a faithful student. so friday, as i drove home from work beneath a sky that looked like the last storm-chasing special i watched, i was afraid. shaking. scanning the radio for news, warnings...anything. but all i could find was a bad Destiny's Child song (i'm not implying that they have a lot of good songs) and static.
but i wasn't about to pull over or duck beneath an overpass. that, despite common opinion, is one of the most dangerous decisions one can make whilst trying to survive a tornado. instead, i continued trucking along in a flooding downpour under a green sky filled with black wall clouds and doom. i swore up and down that i saw rotation in the clouds - and funnels, even. but between the swearing up and down, i kept saying to myself, "jessi, you can do it. this will make you stronger." the positive self-talk at this point is of utmost importance.
once my journey beneath personified death ended, i arrived at the gym. minutes later, the storm showed its face there, too. and as i climbed aboard a treadmill, the television began screaming loud and clear that our county was, in fact, under a tornado warning. and the storm i had just driven through was, in fact, dangerous.
in fact, the facts scared the bejesus out of me.
that's when i put my ear buds in and turned up my Ipod.
surprised?
you probably assumed i continued my freak-out session. but, you're wrong. i was determined to run. instead of hiding in the bathroom or under a table (not that i've ever done that,) i continued the positive self-talk with a, "come on, jessi. this place is safer than where you live anyway. just keep running. you know you want to."
i did want to.
and by the time i finished, the warning was over and the all-clear had been given.
i knew it was safe to drive home. to exist. to sing in my car. and i knew that what i had just gone through made me stronger.
and right now, i am fully aware of how ridiculous this sounds to anyone who is not me.
due to my slight weather obsession, i'm very familiar with wall clouds, super cells and what the sky looks like right before all hell breaks loose. brian busby has been a good teacher. and, i, a faithful student. so friday, as i drove home from work beneath a sky that looked like the last storm-chasing special i watched, i was afraid. shaking. scanning the radio for news, warnings...anything. but all i could find was a bad Destiny's Child song (i'm not implying that they have a lot of good songs) and static.
but i wasn't about to pull over or duck beneath an overpass. that, despite common opinion, is one of the most dangerous decisions one can make whilst trying to survive a tornado. instead, i continued trucking along in a flooding downpour under a green sky filled with black wall clouds and doom. i swore up and down that i saw rotation in the clouds - and funnels, even. but between the swearing up and down, i kept saying to myself, "jessi, you can do it. this will make you stronger." the positive self-talk at this point is of utmost importance.
once my journey beneath personified death ended, i arrived at the gym. minutes later, the storm showed its face there, too. and as i climbed aboard a treadmill, the television began screaming loud and clear that our county was, in fact, under a tornado warning. and the storm i had just driven through was, in fact, dangerous.
in fact, the facts scared the bejesus out of me.
that's when i put my ear buds in and turned up my Ipod.
surprised?
you probably assumed i continued my freak-out session. but, you're wrong. i was determined to run. instead of hiding in the bathroom or under a table (not that i've ever done that,) i continued the positive self-talk with a, "come on, jessi. this place is safer than where you live anyway. just keep running. you know you want to."
i did want to.
and by the time i finished, the warning was over and the all-clear had been given.
i knew it was safe to drive home. to exist. to sing in my car. and i knew that what i had just gone through made me stronger.
and right now, i am fully aware of how ridiculous this sounds to anyone who is not me.
posted by Pensive Girl @ 6:42 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:14 PM,
Faith said…
Not ridiculous at. all.
As I left work on Friday, I noted that the cloud over my building complex campus thingy looked suspicious and scary, like one of those dark clouds that gathers over a building in a movie in order to foreshadow ominous inhabitants within. I drove toward a very light, bright sky, thinking that the sun was out up ahead.
But the light and bright wasn't sunshine...it was the wall cloud. It was pouring rain harder than I've ever seen before, and I WAS DRIVING THROUGH IT! Then? THEN it started to hail.
I called my fiance, and asked him if there was a tornado warning. He assured me there wasn't, and I kept driving and talking to him trying to remain calm, and eventually I drove out of it, and got home and turned on the news and saw that indeed, there had been a warning. Right by my work. Awesome.
Later I found out the fiance wouldn't have known about the tornado warning either way...the t.v.'s at the Moose are satellite. And in any kind of bad weather (hell, if a breeze blows on them), they don't work.
We got lucky, sista. And it's only the beginning of the season, dammit!
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