Lucky in Love

 Selfie of me and Kevin from about 6 months ago ⬆️ 

This past Saturday, when I was driving home from dropping Evita off, I had really bad driving anxiety. I just pushed it out of my head thinking, as long as I just get home- I won’t have to drive for a week. Kevin and the boss were doing all the driving to Corpus Christi and the little towns in between. But then early Sunday morning, Kevin had a flat tire, so I had to drive. I hadn’t told him about the driving anxiety the night before. I just dealt with it. Then I noticed there was a big smudge on the windshield in my field of vision. How did that happen?  I have no idea. It was on the inside too. If it was there on Saturday, then I must not have seen it due to the fact that I was only driving in daylight. Perhaps it was just more noticeable in the dark. Or maybe it was new, I have no idea. There were also no 24/7 stores nearby that we could go get windex. I only had to drive to the boss’s house, because he was going to drive everyone to the little town we were doing inventory at. Then, there was a road closure in both directions about three miles from the boss’s house. The navigation couldn’t figure out a new way to go. It just kept repeating “make a u-turn, make a u-turn.” Finally I just had a massive panic attack. I had to pull into a c-store so we could switch drivers. Kevin insisted he knew another way to get to his house. But that just gave me more anxiety, because I never did add Kevin into my car insurance. It’s just me and Evita as listed drivers. So I was like, please be careful.  

Inventory in the little town took four hours. We bought windex and a cheap roll of paper towels at the store we worked at. Went back to the boss’s house, cleaned my windshield. I drove the 30 something miles from his house back to ours in Waller. Now with daylight and a clean windshield, (and no road closures), it was easier but my driving anxiety came back. I finally just burst into tears and told Kevin about the anxiety I had Saturday evening and how I was glad I wouldn’t have to drive for a week. I was in tears the whole time I talked about it with him, when this whole day long I had managed to not cry. 

With my mother (and my late father), crying is this ultimate failure that makes them beyond mad. If I ever went to them crying about anything and happened to be dating anyone at the time, one of the threats they’d spew was, “Don’t ever cry like this in front of your boyfriend, he’ll break up with you!”  So part of me just assumed total failure of the relationship. I assumed Kevin was mad at me for this. We got home and I subconsciously started sizing up my belongings in case I had to pack up and leave. But the most unexpected thing happened. Kevin laid with me on the bed and told me he was extremely proud of me. I didn’t know what on earth he meant. Proud of what?  He then explained that I had this bad driving anxiety, but I still drove anyway. I made it there and back, safely. I fought through the fear. I was like- oh. Oh?  Is that a perspective on this situation?  It is?  Kevin said I was a fighter. He has called me that before. 

The total opposite of what the older people in my life said would happen (I say it like that because it definitely wasn’t just my parents that instilled all this extreme fear in me).  This experience really solidified my love for this man. He can see me at my worst and still have this perspective that is positive. No one has done that for me before.