Emotions under Pressure
My life before the cowboy led me to believe that I was a person who was decently composed under pressure. Unfortunately, a long series of early humbling experiences hit me with the harsh reality that I wasn’t as great in intense situations as I thought…
It’s a tight race between Lucas and my mom as to who has seen me throw more tantrums in this life. The primary difference between the two is that my mother would engage my emotional escapades growing up, and the cowboy rarely saw a need to participate in such.
The man I am married to today is a very patient man. He isn’t one to be led by his emotions. Though he was often willing to help me in times of need, he has always maintained little value for assisting me in escaping difficult situations. Meanwhile, I placed myself at an even greater disadvantage as I also believed only the weak admitted their needs openly. Therefore, I would often choose the path of greater strength- behaving like that of a four-year-old child in a 20-something-year-old’s body.
My lack of composure in those situations very seldom ever cost Lucas his; most of the time he would just move on with the task at hand or ignore the outbursts all together. His biggest fear in our early years was that I would one day wake up and resent the pressures and constants of this lifestyle. He needed me to understand that the intense moments weren’t going to disappear and his way of teaching me this valuable lesson was to allow me to wallow in my frustration until I found a way out on my own.
The first time I ever drove a truck and trailer just so happened to also be the first-time a couple of outsiders would witness one of these emotional episodes in real time. (Prior to that moment I had done well to conceal my fits to instances in which it was only us.) When I met Lucas I drove a mini cooper, and while I had many great attributes, driving wasn’t one of them. He, on the other hand, drove a Dodge dually long bed with a truck bed camper in the back, meaning the rearview mirror was of no use to the person operating the vehicle. The only thing I had going for me was that my vehicle was a stick shift, as his truck-of-a-bus just so happened to be one too. However, when you added his bumper pull trailer to his rig, the length of the entire unit was approximately 4 times greater than that I was used to.
One day, there came about a situation in which Lucas was going to need me to pick up an animal of some sort while he was at work, so I knew the lesson of learning to drive a trailer was in my near future, but I had envisioned us learning together on the back roads, kicking up dirt and laughing as the sun went down (like every great country song had indicated something like that might go). But that wasn’t the case.
One night after church he threw me the keys to his truck and said “You’re driving home.” I laughed, tossed them back his way, and firmly replied “No I’m not.” As he proceeded to gently toss them a second time, he casually said; “No really, I gotta get some sleep…” He had been up for nearly 36 hours straight after working the night shift and I knew in that moment he was completely serious. I briefly attempted to beg in a whispering voice as our best friends, who rode with us, were within earshot of our conversation. Unfortunately, my desperation didn’t faze him, he proceeded to place himself in the front seat, put his feet up on the dash, recline his chair, transition his cowboy hat to his face in full fledge napping position, and calmly spoke the words “You’ll be fine.”
I. Was. Terrified. And. Livid.
Though the trailer was empty; it was pitch dark and ten o’clock at night. We were an hour from our destination with only highways and interstates ahead of us, and on top of all of that, it was beginning to pour down rain. My initial anger gave me the adrenaline to begin the endeavor as I gritted my teeth and put the truck in gear. The rest of the journey was a roller coaster, both literally and emotionally, with my white knuckles gripping the steering wheel and my tense body approximately 6 inches from the windshield, I transitioned from cussing out my boyfriend at the speed of 80 mph to cry sobbing in fear at the even more dangerous speed of 45 mph. Meanwhile, our friends sat in utter silence in the backseat as they themselves grappled with the fear of their lives and the intensely awkward future of our relationship. Lucas slept through the entire experience.
As I pulled into the drive to drop off our friends, Lucas awoke from his deep slumber and said “See, I knew you’d be fine.” As one can only imagine, this is far from the ending of this story, but for today, this is where it will end.
There’s no question that the way Lucas and I learned to live life together wouldn’t work for most, but luckily, this isn’t a blog about successful relationship strategies. This is a blog about life’s pressure. If you aim to live life to your fullest potential, pressure is guaranteed, and emotions are too. There will be times to learn to manage your emotions, and times to learn to experience your emotions, but it is in life’s most pressurized moments when we truly become the next version of ourselves, and it is up to us if that version is better or worse than the one that came before…