I’m honestly still a little shaken up right now. When I was a kid, my biggest fear was tornados. Plain and simple, I was terrified I was doomed to die in one for some reason. It was extremely unrealistic and kind of paralyzing, anytime there was a strong storm (basically all the time in Florida during the summer) I would freak out and hide out in my bedroom. I distinctly remember hanging out in my bed-tent (I constructed a makeshift tent over my bed for an entire year or so) a lot, reading to keep my mind off the storms. Anyway, my fear turned to fascination and i ended up studying tornados a lot, and now obviously, I don’t have an insane fear of them. So, why am I freaking out right now you ask, well, I’ll explain.
I was about to leave for class and this storm starts kicking up. I’m standing in the carport kind of trying to decide whether it’s worth it to drive through this for my class.. my parents insist I go, and against my gut feeling, I decided to go. I got a lot of dirt in my eyes in the 12 feet I ran to the car. First indication I shouldn’t have kept going, but whatever. I started driving and the rain really wasn’t bad, just super windy. Then a block later I hit a wall of rain, it went from none, to “what the crap, i can’t see anything except blinding flashes of lightning”. Whatever, I can handle this, so I kept driving. GOt on Goldenrod, and it wasn’t too horrible, hard to see but I was going slow and it was fine, it’s florida, it rains. Get on VCC Lane and soon start to hear clicking.. I’ve never experienced hail first ahdn so I thought maybe it was just big raindrops.. or soemthing, and figured otu pretty soon it was definitely hail. Storm kept getting worse and worse, hail was defeaning, I was a bit uncomfortable at this point. I was coming up on the 417 overpass thing, and I was like ok.. maybe i should pull over, because this is kind of bad.. when I saw about 10 other cars had already done so, I thought I was in good company and pulled over. I have NEVER experienced anything like this. I was totally alone, surrounded by cars parked uneer and overpass, hail flying around in the break between the two overpasses, and crazy wind and rain making it hard to see very far. So, I at this point start to panic a bit. I tried to call home and get a weather report, and my phone wasnt going through, I think the overpass was messing with the reception. I kept trying, it finally staretd ringing, just as it did, for whatever reason, my car started shaking and moving off toward the right, the huge truck parked in front of me did too. Oooooookay, that was the final nail in the coffin, I was freakin. When a huge truck starts shifting around I start to think this storm is a bit more than rain and hail. I finally got ahold of my mom and asked about the storm. Apparently there was no rotation in it, so that calmed me down a little, though I honestly thought I was about to die. I felt like I was in that movie Twister, as soon as my car started moving around funky, I just knew in my mind there was a tornado coming and I was going to die. It was the most terrifying few minutes of my life. Everything about that storm screamed tornado to me, but apparently it wasn’t the case. Anyway..
I fianlly thought I could maybe drive to school, so I pulled out.. and I guess the overpass was misleading because I immediately hit hail and blinding rain again.. so I turned around to go home, I’d rather be flipping out at home then in my phsycology class. About 50 yeards from the overpass coming home it just stops.. I got to the light at Godenrod and look around and the cloud is so abrupt, looked like a wall cloud so I was completely baffled that it wasn’t one. Weather is crazy. Anyway, the rest of the way home there was no rain, nothing. Compeltely crazy.
They lifted the severe weather alert thing about 5 minutes after I got home. Awesome timing, I’m on the road for the 10 minutes this storm exists.
I was so scared it’s ridiculous, I have only been that scared once before in my life. True fear I was about to lose my life. I’d rather never have that fear, so to have it twice is not so pleasant. Though, the good thing is I can really sit back an thank God for my life right now. I complain sometimes about petty things, and I really need to sit back and realize my life in itself is a gift from God, and know he takes car of me. I felt really alone in that car until I started praying, and then I felt okay, like God was sitting there in the passenger sit, all chill, saying “hey, relax, it’s gonna be fine, just chill under this overpass for a few minutes and it’ll all be golden”. It’s a good reminder for me that I’m never alone, I’m bever left to my own resources, God is always going to be there, and he is always looking out for me.
It’s the most comforting thought I can imagine from the scariest feeling I have ever experienced. God’s cool like that.
