Mental Health Date

September 30, 2019

Recently I have been feeling as though my life problems have been a little too hard to handle at the moment and after work today I thought, “What better way to unwind than head for the mountains and just clear your head.” Do a little knitting maybe, read some of my bible, or even journal down my thoughts because mental health is important. That is exactly what I planned to do. I went home and changed into an over-sized sweatshirt and some workout gear and headed to the mountains. On my way there I couldn’t help but get excited about unwinding and putting myself first. What was supposed to be a relaxing evening, started out as a panic attack due to a spider being in my car.

Everyone who knows me, knows I am terrified of spiders being in my personal space. I’m not really bothered when I see one crawling around in nature because I can easily leave that area. But being in the comfort of my own car, where am I supposed to go when one is in there? I have this sixth sense (not really) where when I see something out of my peripheral vision, 9/10 times its a creature. So as I am jamming out in my car headed for the mountains and a quiet place to relax, I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. Not really expecting it to be anything, I look into my rear view mirror and I see this massive, fury, black spider crawling on my mirror. Being on a gravel road doesn’t stop me from slamming on my brakes, throwing my car in park, unbuckling my seat belt and literally diving out of my car. I couldn’t seem to escape fast enough.

There I was in the middle of this mountain trail, no one to be found, freaking out, hyperventilating, and my eyes locked on this scary creature that just took over my car. Normally I cannot kill any bug, insect, or monster because I don’t like to feel the crunch of their body go through my hand holding onto the object that kills them. The thought of feeling that, freaks me out within itself. I can see God showing me that dating yourself, also means doing all the things you’ve never had to do before, like killing a spider. I honestly waited for a few minutes hoping a park ranger would happen to drive down the same trail I was on, but given I was there, by myself, I had a feeling I would be waiting for hours. So I plan out how I am going to take back my car from this dime sized spider.

At this point, it jumped from my rear view mirror to the ceiling of my car. I now know that if I miss this spider there is a high chance he will jump on me and eat my body. My fear has now doubled. So it’s between the two lights on my ceiling, I grab my hiking boot from the backseat of my car and just windmill my arm towards the ceiling and I missed him (of course because I’m pretty sure I also closed my eyes). He runs into the passenger side sun visor. I repeatedly hit the hiking boot off the outside of the visor so he doesn’t try to take cover in a place that I can’t see him. I run to the passenger side of the car hoping to squish him fast before thinking about his body crunching.

I make it to the other side of my car and low and behold I can’t f*cking find him. Awesome Allie. Way to freaking go. How the hell are you supposed to kill this spider and take back your car if you can’t find him. I grab one of my knitting needles and pry open the sun visor. Still no where to be found. I grab my cellphone and turn on the flashlight, maybe one of his beady little eyes will reflect off the light and I can find him. Not like I want to stare a monster in its face, but I will do what I have to, to survive. Finally I found him right where he was when looking at the driver side of my car. I run back to the drivers side because I have a clear view of this little prick. So I have to find a way to lure him out of this spot without touching him or getting too close. I use my knitting needle to poke the area around him in hopes he will move. It worked and he did. He is currently making his way across the ceiling of my car. This time around I use my boot to slowly get closer to his body and I drove my arm straight up and released fast enough to see his body fall onto my floor mat and see his guts attached to my ceiling.

Praise the Lord I got him. Now the last step was disposing of his lifeless body, because it sure as hell wasn’t staying in my car. I run back to the passenger side and rummage through my car and think of ways to remove his body without littering. I grab both of my knitting needles and decide to use them like chop sticks and pick up his body. As I am doing this I can tell I will be here for hours trying to get him from point A to point B if I don’t think of another way. So I pick up a leaf, examine it closely, several times because I do not want another creepy creature coming into my car as I am trying to dispose of the first one. I put his body on the leaf, gently grab the leaf without tilting it, stop and look at it to make sure it really is dead, and then lay the leaf on the ground and stomp the hell out of it anyway just to be extra sure.

I got back in my car and shook my whole body is disgust and disbelief and kept on into the mountains. Something I never wanted to do, I now have to do, because I am also the person in this relationship within myself to do the things I don’t enjoy doing, like facing my fears. But here I am growing in ways today, I didn’t expect to.

I get to the view, park my car, leave my phone inside, and grab my journal. I tried four times to sit on the hood of my car before actually getting up and staying. Apparently wearing stretchy active pants and a VW bug allows you to slide right off. I write in my journal and take in the woodpeckers and all the other birds chirping. I notice my surroundings and just breathe. I was relaxed, even after the eventful dilemma I just experienced.