@mcxmac
Here is goes… I hope it’s not too silly or boring…
I was getting more and more panicked about driving. I had almost stopped driving all together. I was bussing it more and not leaving the house as much and starting to be late for work more often due to the bus situation. But I was so afraid of crashing the car. What would happen if I was in a car crash? It caused me a lot of panic.
It was almost three years ago when that rite of passage that comes to every teen, came to my sister. Drivers Ed. My kid sis had asked and begged and pleaded with me to teach her how to drive again. I taught her once before when she was about 11 and I was drunk. But now, her legal age, and me sober. I had a very hard time doing it, but I guess I owed her one. Just one time out… It shouldn’t be that bad… Right?
Either I was still living in my head or I had taken too much Xanax because I was going through some rather dull feelings with no emotional swing. I was rather numb as I calmly sat in the passenger seat and my sis started up the old Dodge van. She decided to try out one of the back roads that doesn’t have heavy traffic. But as we got further into the trees, the van went out of control; we ricocheted off a snow poll, swerved into oncoming traffic, over corrected and almost hit a bigger tree. The van spun out on some gravel and came to a halt in a cloud of dust as my sis jumped out of the van and ran around a bit waving her arms frantically. I was surprised that I wasn’t too upset by this commotion. I watched her for a while. I was rather puzzled by all this… I then calmly shouted out… “Are you done now? Could you not run around on the highway?”
She finally stopped and she got close to the van and peeked in…. “Is… Is the bee still in there?”
I looked around and did in fact see a bee. I was wondering what that buzzing was. She took the key, opened the back doors and refused to get near the van until the bee flew away. It took a while. I was glad I brought a book and some extra smokes.
There is a small dent from where we hit the pole and there were tree bits in the grill, but we got the van home. She gave me hug and said, “Thank you for being so calm. I love that fact that you don’t get all freaked out about dents and stuff. Maybe someday I’ll learn to be as calm as you. Will you be my teacher for the rest of drivers ed?” I wasn’t sure I was really up for that.
I was thinking… “To be as calm as I am, you need to be getting into some negative symptom. I hope that never happens.” Later that night it hit me, I almost died due to a bee in the car. I was basically in a car crash today, and I was OK. But just incase, I should start to drive on my own again. She got me driving again. I couldn’t do any worse then she just did… 
