Here comes that itchy feeling when I haven’t updated in so long I fear when I DO eventually get around to saying something important, all the threads of my life will have unraveled in such small but profound ways that I will think FUCK IT, I cannot write this tome of boring shit to get you from THERE to HERE in any kind of coherent way.

So here is the first post in a bunch of small things that have happened with no great story line yet, but I guess take the temperature of life over here, so you will not be shocked or surprised when something profound does happen.

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About a month ago, I solo-drove one of my kids to an athletic event in the Bay Area. We had to leave fairly late in the evening due to other obligations. Our plan involved an overnight stay, followed by a daybreak meet.

I knew my stress level was not-great going into this trip. For one thing, I’ve grown increasingly agoraphobic and/or socially anxious with age, which is something that happened with my paternal grandmother and my father. I have mixed feelings about this, since I love/d these people and, as a child, wanted to grow up to be like them, even knowing they were weird and maybe pretty lonely. And guess what? Achievement unlocked! Now I am the weird one. I’m trying not to make it look too cool, thus doing my part in saving younger generations from idolizing me. And before you get up in my replies, I’ve already scheduled a doctor’s appointment about it, as well as all the shit that follows.

The responsibilities of this trip were manifold: Being the only adult, navigating a big city in the dark. Waking, prepping, and arriving on time. Then sitting 3+ hours the next day with a bunch of parents while our children were judged on their athletic skills. The stress of managing my anxiety about my kid putting her hard-earned skill set on display, and undoubtedly falling somewhere short of the perfection she sought. Knowing my kid would be looking to my reaction to learn how to judge herself.

On the drive up to the Bay Area, traffic (very predictably) grew increasingly zany as we left rural 101 for suddenly multi-lane zippity-bippity of San Jose.

Thereabouts, I got a whiff of some agricultural smell (probably just broccoli and garlic, but my fear mongering mind always insists it’s the smell of pesticides) that frequently does a number on my lungs, almost like an allergy.

I’ve had a similar physical reaction a couple of times in the past. I had a V-Q scan for it once, because my mother’s side of the family has a history of pulmonary embolism, and so me having pain in my lungs was worth the ER trip. Anyway, when I smelled this smell, and my lungs started to hurt, I figured I knew what was happening. Weird allergy.

I didn’t really have time to consider it too much anyway. I had road signs to attend to, and newly fanatic city drivers swooping all around with their city rules. Driving in the dark is not my favorite. Plus, I was the only adult, so who was I going to complain to?

Definitely not my small child. Who, as it so happened, had volunteered to navigate using my phone. I had assumed this would be a simple and fun task. But it turns out, my kid is a really poor navigator who managed to turn off Siri and then with absolutely no warning at all would shout, “OK TURN HERE. RIGHT HERE. BACK THERE, MOM.”

Which was basically fine, I told myself. I knew the rough sketch on how to get to this hotel, as I had studied the directions before we’d departed. And honestly, I wasn’t sure if I pulled over and fiddled with my phone for a half hour that I’d be able to get Siri back on because I have a serious case of The Olds and one of my other kids usually works all my tech.

I kept driving. My lungs kept bothering me. Driving got backed up, in the early throes of Saturday Night traffic. I got kind of worried: the smell had passed, lungs were ramping up in pain. Like, every breath, air turning into claws inside me. Worse and worse, until I worried maybe I was having some kind of cardiac event. I am 43. Isn’t that the age when people start dropping dead from some previously undiagnosed heart thing and their hearts explode and everyone says, “OMIGOD, they were so healthy! S/he just ran a marathon last June?” Except I have never run a marathon, and my obit will be sadly bereft of cool-assed things, but GIVE ME A BREAK, I’ve only had 43 years to sit on my ass.

Around the time the pain got so significant I seriously began to consider pulling off, onto a strange off-ramp, in the dark, in the big city, and possibly scaring the shit out my kid, and maybe calling 911… I saw that traffic was slowing due to late night road construction. Like some terrible nightmare, a sign sprung up out of nowhere declaring, “NEXT THREE EXITS CLOSED” placed exactly close enough to the last available exit so as to make it impossible for me to swing across three traffic lanes and escape.

In between deep breaths, I prompted my kid to tell me where we were on the map, how much time until the next Siri-style instruction, and where we might be. My kid said, “We are just a blue dot on a line, on a blank page.” And when I further prompted her to pinch out, to read the name of any words on the map: “Um, now I don’t even see the dot anymore.”

Fortunately, traffic had slowed to 15 miles an hour.

Unfortunately, we could neither exit, nor pull off to the shoulder, which was closed. My lungs hurt writing this, a month later.

At the time, taking long, slow, pulls of air, I figured I was most likely having a panic attack, probably instigated from the stress of the trip and the physical kicker of the allergy. Given all the other stressors, I hadn’t even considered I would be seeing my mother on this trip, after hardly speaking to her since our last visit. Of course it was a panic attack. Just keep breathing.

I was not prepared for what came next, which was waves of feeling so lightheaded, I legit feared I might faint.

That sensation came and went. Still trapped in stop-n-go traffic, with neither exit nor shoulder. I pulled into the most left hand lane, and figured the shoulder had to open up eventually. I went slow, and I bit my lip hard enough to keep my attention focused, and I waved my right hand around like crazy to get my blood moving. I turned the radio up to cover my heavy breathing.

My lips went numb and tingly, and I kept telling myself it was probably a panic attack, but also every ER I’ve ever visited with their IF YOU ARE HAVING CHEST PAINS TELL US IMMEDIATELY, and my mom’s history of pulmonary embolism were on the other side of that equation.

I thought: Honestly, I’m 85% convinced I’m immortal. But now also running 8% sure I might actually die. Two percent sure Baby J will take the wheel. One percent sure if Baby J does show up, he will be popping a wheelie like my last God-Talk-Hallucination. Two percent sure this thought process, and all its accompanying links, qualifies as some short version of life flashing before my eyes. A hundred percent proud that in these last throes of existence, I’ve finally mastered basic math.

I thought: if I were a good mother, I would stop my car and not endanger my child, because what if I actually do pass out?

I also thought: if I stop my car and block a lane of traffic in this nightmare, it will be hours before an ambulance can get to us, and in the meantime, someone may kill us via road rage.

And so I kept driving along at 15 miles and hour. And by the time traffic cleared, my symptoms had dissipated, and all I wanted to do was get to the hotel and tuck the kid safely into bed, and cry in the shower.

When we made it to the hotel, I did tuck the child into bed. I told her I was going to call her dad, but I’d do it outside so I didn’t keep her up.

Then I crept out to the parking lot, called my husband, and told him I thought I’d had a panic attack, but it might’ve been a heart attack or something, and that I’d instructed our child on how to unlock my phone and dial 911. And so if I didn’t call in the morning, I might have died in the night, please have the hotel manager come knock on our door and save our child from The Worst Day Ever.

Husband kept me on the line and googled heart attacks and panic attacks. He reassured me the average age of heart attack is 70, and that made me feel better. Better still when he told me tingly lips is classic sign of panic attack.

Then we talked about what no fucking family should have to talk about, but I’m sure we all do from time to time: we estimated that if I went to the ER with chest pain, it would probably cost us more than thousand dollars in co-pays. We knew this because one of our kids recently went to the ER, had zero medical tests done, saw the resident on call for 12 minutes and went home. (See, here is another story I should have told you at the time, but didn’t and now I don’t want to spend half an hour explaining this old news.) We paid $1200 for that.

And while I’d rather pay $1000 if it meant saving my life, two surprise $1000+ payments in six months is a bit of financial strain.

While discussing with my husband whether I wanted my children’s history to be their mother died because she skimped on a $1000 medical check up, or the children whose mother lost $1000 over a panic attack and thus screwed the family budget, a floppy-haired college aged kid came around the darkened corner of the hotel my daughter and I had checked into.

He seemed friendly enough when he said, “Hi!” to me and started walking my direction. Even though I was clearly distressed and balls deep in a phone conversation. I turned away, but almost immediately glanced his way again, realizing I was in a hotel parking lot at 10 on a Saturday night, and I probably shouldn’t turn my back on a strange guy coming toward me.

When I made eye contact again (my face set to honey badger) he resumed walking toward me, and again said, “Oh, hi.”

I wasn’t scared so much as irritated that he somehow thought whatever I was doing (tearfully and wide-eyed having my husband role play Emergency Medical Tech) wasn’t as important as meeting whatever need College Boy had in striking up a conversation with a stranger in a parking lot. I bared my teeth at him. He stopped again, giving me a puzzled and hurt look. Took another hesitant step forward.

I went full Wild Kingdom narrative in my head: The mother human, separated from her sleeping daughter, defends her territory. Although the safety of the hotel’s front desk is less than a hundred feet from here, she is unwilling to put the child’s room out of view.

A fifty-something guy came out of his hotel room and lit a smoke on the upper balcony. I guess this could have made me feel safe enough to continue my phone conversation, but the Kavanaugh hearings had happened in recent memory. Previous to those hearings, I probably would have assumed one extra guy showing up at random would be a witness, on my side. Having seen and heard so many men disparage #MeToo, men who I had previously believed would protect me and have my back, I didn’t know if this new man was more likely to serve as protection in the form of a witness, or if I was in more danger with more men there.

I thought: If something bad happens to me now, would people later ask why a twenty year old, college-looking-type-guy would even want to assault a 40 year old like me? What was I doing out in the parking lot, if not looking for trouble? Am I safe?

Oddly, I did feel safe enough with a witness to go back to my hotel room, with my husband still on the phone.

I told my husband in whispered tones what was going on right before I went inside the hotel room, and then recapped non-important travel events with false cheerfulness for the sake of my daughter inside. Then I risked dying in a terrible fire by blocking the hotel door with the hotel chair and went to sleep. I tried not to think of all the things I’m inadvertently teaching my daughters when I think I’m only teaching them about how to compete at sporting events.

SO HAPPY TO WAKE UP ALIVE. And then felt a little ridiculous for being so afraid. And then smart for not wasting $1000. And then very sad that I think of myself as a middle class American who can generally afford to live my life. Except when it comes to healthcare. Except in a parking lot at 10 on a Saturday night.